SSTI Digest

Craig Watters is serving as interim director of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University. Past director Nola Miyasaki has relocated to Hawaii to join a biotech company.

The fate of the Advanced Technology Program and the Administration's entire reorganization of federal economic development efforts also took hits, as parts of a series of Congressional votes on the budget. However, these votes are only the first step in a along budget process. Senate Saves CDBG with Coleman Amendment Last Thursday, 42 Democratic Senators joined one Independent and 23 Republicans in passing a Republican measure that blocks the key element of the White House plan to consolidate most economic development programs within the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA). The amendment to the budget authorization bill sponsored by Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) prevented the transfer of the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to the Commerce Department and fully funds CBDG at fiscal year 2005 funding authorization levels. The House Budget Authorization also kept CDBG within HUD. While the Administration's FY 2006 budget request proposed consolidating or eliminating at least 28…

With Opening Day less than two weeks away, a baseball analogy is only fitting to suggest NIST's Advanced Technology Program (ATP) is in for a long season. Since 1990, ATP has provided early-stage funding for 768 projects to accelerate the development of innovative technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread benefits. While the program is still engaged with its portfolio of two-year awards from 2004, Congress did not appropriate any funding for a 2005 solicitation cycle for new projects. The Administration's fiscal year 2006 budget request recommended terminating the program altogether. Last week began with the news that a key House Science subcommittee excluded the program in its approved version of H.R. 250, a NIST authorization bill entitled "the Manufacturing Technology Competitiveness Act of 2005."  The National Journal's Tech Daily reported March 15 that the bill will be considered by the full House Science Committee next month. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the full Senate passed an amendment to the Senate's version of the budget authorization bill on a 53-46…

Sometimes a little money is all that may be required to discover that an innovation in the lab is worth millions in the marketplace. At least that's the goal of a small grant program launched this afternoon by the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center (MTTC). The MTTC Tech Commercialization Awards will provide $5,000 mini-grants for technology assessments and investigations by academic and industrial researchers within the Commonwealth. All researchers and technology licensing offices at Massachusetts research institutions are eligible for the awards, which strive to enable researchers to move technology closer to commercial markets. Five awards of up to $5,000 each will be granted to determine the potential commercial application of innovative technology, including identifying target markets and business development contacts. An additional five grants of up to $25,000 will be made for technology development projects, including prototype building, proof-of-concept demonstrations and project development. Created in 2004 and housed in the Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property Office at the…

As trends in federal funding priorities shift from domestic R&D to defense-related R&D, universities are scrambling to get their piece of the pie. The president's fiscal year 2006 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) includes increased funding of 6.6 percent over the fiscal year 2005 appropriation (see the Feb. 14 issue of the Digest). In comparison, increased funding requested for research-related activities within the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health are not proposed even to keep pace with inflation. Maneuvering around a decades-old policy banning classified and sensitive military projects, the University of Wisconsin (UW) System, The Medical College of Wisconsin, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, and the Marshfield Clinic announced earlier this month the formation of the Wisconsin Security Research Consortium. The independent nonprofit entity will allow the institutions to bid for funding available for military and high-security projects from federal agencies such as DHS. An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel points out that UW has a…

The rapid increase in federal spending for defense and homeland security has led a number of states to establish initiatives targeting potential economic development from these activities. North Carolina becomes the latest of those states, with its proposed Defense Technology Innovation Center. The North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA), in collaboration with MCNC, has presented a formal plan to develop the incubator/accelerator in Cumberland County. The plan aims to convert North Carolina's technology and R&D assets into products and companies, emphasizing the state's military presence to enhance economic development in the region, said NCTA. Planning for the incubator began in 2004 when the idea was validated by the General Assembly during its legislative session. The plan centers on a business incubation model and is designed to bridge the military and business communities, providing business start-up services and flexible facilities to accelerate the formation of growth of early-stage technology ventures. Start-up costs would be approximately $5 million over three years. …

Broadband access is considered by most to be a key ingredient for encouraging innovation and building a local tech-based economy. Access for many rural areas, however, remains geographically or financially out of reach. Earlier this month, the New Hampshire Rural Development Council (NHRDC) unveiled a plan to change that for the businesses, government and individuals in the northern portion of the Granite State. Produced by a group of more than 20 regional economic and community development practitioners, the Technology and Telecommunications Master Plan serves as a broad framework that is expected to provide direction to the region. The document is not intended as an implementation plan, but a tool to provide guidance as funding opportunities and projects become available, according to NHRDC. The plan is divided into two sections, with part one discussing goals and objectives. Part two serves as a technology primer, detailing infrastructure, access, governance, policy and legal issues. General recommendations include: Investing in a regional digital transport system; Making technology…

The National Science Foundation has released its report on Federal Science and Engineering (S&E) Support to Universities, Colleges and Nonprofit Institutions for Fiscal Year 2002, revealing the government distributed nearly $24.4 billion to the nation's research institutions during the year. The figure is 8.5 percent higher higher than the FY 2001 total of $22.5 billion. Federal S&E obligations include six categories of spending: research and development; R&D plant; facilities for instruction in S&E; fellowships, traineeships and training grants; general support for S&E; and, other S&E activities. The distribution of spending for each category varies greatly by state. Among the statistics included in the new NSF report are tables presenting the geographic distribution of funds by institution, state, activity and agency. More information is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf05309/htmstart.htm SSTI has prepared a table presenting total federal S&E obligations by state for the five-year period between 1998 and 2002. During that time, federal S&E…

The scenario: You are a state legislator and have learned high oil and gas prices will provide the state coffers with at least enough surplus revenue over the next five years to have approximately $1,000 per resident. What do you do with the money? Elected officials in Wyoming have chosen to invest $500 million into the state's future through academic scholarships and endowed chairs at the state's universities and community colleges. Once the new endowment fund is fully capitalized, Wyoming high school graduates will receive a scholarship equal to tuition and fees at the University of Wyoming (UW) or any state community college. Signed into law by Gov. Dave Freudenthal on March 3, the bill also authorizes $105 million to be used for endowed chairs and faculty positions. The first part of the act authorizes $400 million for the Hathaway Student Scholarship Endowment Account, which is named after former Gov. Stan Hathaway to recognize his contributions to education in Wyoming. Funding will come from the Budget Reserve Account and it will take at least five years to build the trust to $400…

With a state legislature that only meets for 90 days every two years, opportunity for positive change in Montana's public-supported efforts to build a tech-based economy is limited. For the proposed $20 million Big Sky Economic Development Trust Fund - one of new Gov. Brian Schweitzer's largest economic development initiatives - the 90th day, April 26, is fast approaching. Interest earned on the fund is estimated to total $3 million for the 2006-2007 biennium and to increase in outyears. For the next 20 years, interest would be used to provide grants and loans to local governments and certified regional economic development corporations for projects resulting in new job creation in the state. While rules for the program would be developed by the Montana Department of Commerce, the bill limits allocations to $5,000 per each created job. Language requiring a minimum of five jobs per project has been eliminated in the House Business and Labor Committee, greatly enhancing the fund's potential appeal for assisting start-up firms. Projects not yielding the promised number of jobs would automatically become…

The perennial or biennial efforts to secure funding from state legislatures to support tech-based economic development (TBED) programs can create significant limitations on the design and execution of programs targeting research or early-stage, seed capital investments. Fixed endowments such as the one created by Wyoming and the Permanent Big Sky Economic Development Fund proposed in Montana (see both stories above) are ideal, but getting the initial payment approved by a legislature can be difficult. The Arkansas House of Representatives unanimously passed a measure last week taking an alternate approach that may be a useful model for other states to consider: redirecting bond payments, once the bonds are paid in full, to specific TBED uses. In Arkansas's case, annual funding of $500,000 previously used to pay off bonds made for construction of convention or tourist facilities, would support research and seed capital investment programs in the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority (ASTA) through the year 2017. Through House Bill 2462, the funding would be split evenly between the Arkansas…

For 20 years, small tech firms and researchers in Minnesota called on Minnesota Project Innovation (MPI) for assistance in developing competitive proposals for the federal Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs. On Feb. 28, the MPI Board of Directors voted to officially transfer program operations to the state Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Betsy Lulfs, who joined DEED in early February, will coordinate and expand the SBIR/STTR programs, according to DEED. The program will tap into DEED’s statewide network of Small Business Development Centers, regional business development representatives and business service specialists – as well as through partnerships with organizations such as Medical Alley/MNBIO, the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Lulfs formerly worked with a similar program in Ohio. Since its creation in 1984, MPI helped its client Minnesota firms to identify funding opportunities and obtain high-risk capital for start-up, early-stage and existing companies to…