SSTI Digest

Ah, the difference positive revenue figures make for some states' tech-based economic development (TBED) portfolios! In mid-December, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner introduced an amended 2004-2006 biennial budget that is the most favorable yet during the Warner term for programs to promote economic growth through strategic investments in science and technology.

“Having restored Virginia’s financial stability, we now face the challenge of maintaining it over the long term,” Gov. Warner said in his address to a joint meeting of the Senate Finance, House Finance, and House Appropriations Committees.

The opportunity to fine tune the state's TBED investments comes as 2004 revenue projections were estimated to be nearly $1 billion higher than originally forecast in 2003. In addition to cutting several taxes and shoring up the state's rainy day fund, Gov. Warner proposes the state supplement funding for dozens of initiatives and programs.

A December gathering of leaders from many of the nation's largest companies raised what could be considered a battle cry for the U.S. to take more seriously the implications of globalization.

While most of the corporate giants at the Council on Competitiveness event held last month are actively positioning their companies in the global economy - by offshoring manufacturing and back office operations, scaling up international sales divisions, and increasing R&D investments overseas - their unified alarm call was the U.S. as an economic power is seriously threatened without a more proactive and aggressive national strategy to encourage innovation.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued the detailed statistical tables for Science & Engineering Doctorate awards for 2003. As was done for 2002, 2001 and 2000, SSTI has compiled a 50-state table presenting the number of degrees and rank for each major field of science & engineering. In addition, SSTI has used population in the form of "S&E doctorates awarded per 100,000 residents" to standardize the data to facilitate comparisons across states.

The 2003 table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/011005t.htm

Since identifying trends in numbers is often more valuable than the raw figures themselves, here are links for past tables:

That is the question facing researchers who have innovative ideas that become marketable products. Researchers who file patents to protect intellectual property rights may diminish the value of the research to potential developers due to "knowledge leakage" to competing developers. Instead, a researcher might approach a developer directly to negotiate an exclusive contract in which a researcher receives some immediate compensation and a stake in the licensed, developed product.

Sudipto Bhattacharya of London School of Economics and Sergei Guriev of the New Economic School of Moscow address these two situations in their paper Knowledge Disclosure, Patents, and Optimal Organization of Research and Development. Based on Bhattacharya and Guriev's theories, researchers with venture capital partners may produce deals that result in greater amounts of knowledge development leading to marketable products than those that go it alone.

Just what makes firms productive? Economists continue to refine their thinking on the interactions that enhance productivity. Knowledge capital and knowledge relatedness play an active role in increasing firm competitiveness, especially in large, high-tech manufacturing sectors, according to a study presented at a recent conference of the Groupe de Recherche en Economie.

In Knowledge and Productivity in the World's Largest Manufacturing Corporations, Lionel Nesta of the University of Sussex studies the productivity and technology relatedness of the world's top manufacturing companies. Nesta correlates patent and financial data from international sources for more than 150 multinational companies. He then refines and tests these data using different econometric models. Since Nesta's study uses data related mostly to the most research-intensive sectors, the findings relate mostly to large, technologically advanced firms.

The Georgia Biomedical Partnership named Charles Craig as its new president.

E. Dana Dickens announced he will step down from the Suffolk City Council (Va.) to become president of the Hampton Roads Partnership, a group promoting economic development in the region.

Ohio Department of Development Director Bruce Johnson has been sworn in as the state's lieutenant governor. Johnson is expected to serve both positions for the balance of Gov. Bob Taft's term.

Jafar Karim is the new director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development in South Dakota.

The Georgia Biomedical Partnership named Charles Craig as its new president.

E. Dana Dickens announced he will step down from the Suffolk City Council (Va.) to become president of the Hampton Roads Partnership, a group promoting economic development in the region.

Ohio Department of Development Director Bruce Johnson has been sworn in as the state's lieutenant governor. Johnson is expected to serve both positions for the balance of Gov. Bob Taft's term.

Jafar Karim is the new director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development in South Dakota.

David Harmer, executive director of the Utah Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), announced his retirement. Chris Roybal, senior advisor to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for economic development, will take on many of Harmer's responsibilities.

It is an unfortunate and annoying consequence of politics that sometimes, with the change of gubernatorial administrations even within parties, excellent people with enviable records of delivering results for tech-based economic development programs lose their positions. SSTI has learned that Rod Linton and Michael Keene were among 33 "at-will" economic development staff at the Utah DCED fired en masse last Thursday. Gov. Huntsman, who began his term of office on Jan. 3, plans to run most economic development's activities from within the governor's office and to dismantle DCED. We wish Rod and Mike every success in their future endeavors.