SSTI Digest

New Jersey is launching a new program to stimulate new investment, business growth and job creation in the biotechnology and life sciences industries through a special fund to be established through the Business Employment Incentive Program (BEIP). The $10 million Biotech/Life Sciences Venture Fund, to be administered by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA), will be created out of proceeds generated from an estimated $50 million BEIP bond issue. The state plans to issue the remaining $40 million in November. EDA already manages the $10 million New Jersey Technology Council Venture Fund, which also supports start-up technology companies. Under BEIP, program recipients receive a grant award for up to 80 percent of the income tax payments paid to the state on behalf of the eligible new jobs. The remaining 20-plus percent is considered the "residual" benefit to the state and will be leveraged to create special funds, the first one being the Biotech/Life Sciences Venture Fund. New Jersey State Treasurer John McCormac said that state grants and loans provided…

To transform the nation’s medical research capabilities and speed the movement of research discoveries from the bench to the bedside, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) laid out on Monday a series of initiatives collectively known as the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. Developed with input from more than 300 leaders in academia, industry, government and the public, the NIH Roadmap provides a framework of the strategic investments NIH needs to make to optimize its research portfolio. The NIH Roadmap builds on the progress in medical research achieved, in part, through the recent doubling of the NIH budget. In setting forth a vision for a more efficient and productive system of medical research, the NIH Roadmap focuses on opportunities in three main areas — new pathways to discovery, research teams of the future and re-engineering the clinical research enterprise. The three areas are comprised of 28 initiatives to be carried out by nine implementation groups: Building Blocks, Pathways and Networks; Molecular Libraries and Imaging; Structural Biology;…

Secures State as Pilot Site for FastTrac™ Coming soon to an island near you — business development services. That could be the sales pitch for a new development within the High Technology Development Corporation (HTDC), Hawaii's lead tech-based economic development agency. HTDC launched last week a statewide incubation services program designed to give incubation tenants and non-tenants access to business development services, strategic partnerships, networking and marketing opportunities, shared support services, and business mentoring. Prior to launching its new program, HTDC's incubation services were limited to tenants at its Manoa Innovation Center on Oahu and its Maui Research & Technology Center on Maui. The expanded program brings services to technology start-ups on the Big Island and Kauai. External groups such as the University of Hawaii-Hilo are expected to partner with HTDC to strengthen the new program. UH-Hilo has signed on with a $3 million commitment, the Honolulu Advertiser reported last week. Additional funding will be derived from state and federal…

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius made public on Wednesday the details of a statewide economic revitalization plan designed to stimulate and strengthen the Kansas economy. Included in the plan are several items that could help boost tech-based economic development (TBED) in the state: Kansas Business Incentive Program. The program would use a flexible and innovative approach to distribute tax credits to businesses expanding or locating in Kansas. It also would use a sliding scale of incentives based on project quality and taking into account regional economies. Rural Development Tax Credits. The tax credits would create regional pools of venture capital to assist entrepreneurs and fledgling businesses in rural areas and would be issued to regional foundations. The foundations could then sell the credits to raise money for their regional venture capital pools. Training Centers of Excellence. These centers would specialize in particular educational areas of expertise. Also, an integrated workforce system would include the Kansas Department of Commerce, the Kansas Department of Human…

Policy measures aimed at the development of clusters must take into account which development stage the cluster is currently in. One of the central processes involved in cluster development is that of firm foundings, states Co-Development of Firm Foundings and Regional Clusters, a working paper written by Dirk Fornahl and Max-Peter Menzel. Firm foundings and regional clusters generally have received much attention, but little work has been done to analyze the relationship between these two processes until now. Fornahl and Menzel's paper focuses on the growth of firm foundings and the development of clusters simultaneously within the different stages and the impact they have on regional development. Four stages in the cluster development progression are outlined by Fornahl and Menzel. Each of these stages reveals a different relationship between cluster development and firm foundings. The first stage is that of emerging clusters, which may have few effects on firm foundings because the necessary infrastructure may not yet be in place. However, the firm foundings can have a significant impact on…

The Chronicle of Higher Education annually provides in its Almanac an accessible state-by-state snapshot of a variety of statistics useful in measuring the magnitude and health of higher education. The 2002-2003 Almanac of Higher Education, released recently in print and online, is no exception. For example, figures are provided for college enrollment trends, demographics, faculty pay, tuition and fees, state appropriations, expenditures, R&D, state spending on student aid, and federal funds for academic research. For more meaningful comparisons across large and small states, data is often standardized using other selected statistics such as population or gross state product. Previous Useful Stats articles in the SSTI Weekly Digest have, for example, presented academic R&D expenditures on a per capita basis (see the April 18, 2003 issue of the Digest). To tie university research activity to a perhaps more relevant measure, SSTI has prepared a table drawing from the past two Chronicle almanacs that standardizes academic R&D expenditures by total enrollment (undergraduate, graduate…

Yes, only 10 open seats remain for SSTI’s 7th Annual Conference, Building Tech-based Economies: From Policy to Practice. With nearly three weeks remaining before the October 21-22 event in Seattle, SSTI anticipates it will have to close registration in the coming days based on the phenomenal response to this year’s great slate of 24 breakout sessions, great plenary sessions and wonderful location. If you are planning to attend, we encourage you to register as soon as possible. SSTI won’t take much of the credit for the rapid sell out, however. As returning SSTI conferees know, it’s the dynamic exchange SSTI’s conference enables among peers from across the country and several continents that makes each conference such a rewarding experience. This year promises to be no different as 300 leaders of state, local and university tech-based economic development registrants will be participating from at least 44 states. With several sessions dedicated to roundtable discussions, ample time for questions in nearly every session, long networking breaks, and a great hosted reception, conferees can’t help…

Appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have emerged out of the conference committee for consideration and final approval by Congress — one of three budget bills likely to be passed before the fiscal year ends next Tuesday. Demonstrating anything can happen during the conference between the two chambers, the final budget for the Science and Technology Directorate came out higher than either the Senate or House had approved in separate versions of the DHS appropriations bill. The Directorate, responsible for DHS research activities, is poised to receive $918 million, $7 million above the House level and $52 million above the Senate budget. The majority of the change, however, is relocating nearly $40 million in administration and management expenses to fall within the Directorate. The University Program and Homeland Security Fellowships Program received $70 million, $60 million more than the Administration requested. The Association of American Universities (AAU) reports the amount is $15 million above the House level and $35 million above the Senate's. [Editor's…

The President wants $87 billion for the war in Iraq. Congress is looking at a month-long continuing resolution for the budget since final approval on most appropriation bills is at least that far in the future. Meanwhile, the persistence of the recession, the restructuring of U.S. manufacturing due in part to globalization, and the continued hemorrhaging of tax revenues has led several governors, state legislatures and community leaders to begin rethinking their economic development strategies. The past few months have seen a spate of state and local news on summits, plans and new groups for reorganizing, revamping, recreating or re-energizing public-private economic development efforts.  Below are examples of some of the approaches. E.D. Getting Higher Priority from North Carolina Legislature The North Carolina legislature has established a bi-partisan Joint Select Committee on Economic Growth and Development to reinvigorate the state's economic development activities. According to The Raleigh News & Observer, the 20-member committee will consider proposals such as an…

Study Hints at Why TBED Is Good National Investment Much can be made about the spillover benefits of having a strong research university or cluster of similar technology companies locally. As a result many research institutions and technology-based economic development (TBED) professionals support the creation of endowed chairs and centers of excellence to lure top researchers, hoping for long-term economic benefits from the investment. The heightened interest that most states and universities have placed on becoming a biotech leader, for example, has many policy analysts expecting the end result will simply be to increase the asking price of the top life science researchers. But does this TBED strategy result in the same net loss or zero gain on the macro level that is encountered from the traditional economic development recruitment approach commonly referred to as smokestack chasing? Put another way, is all lost when a key researcher or inventor moves outside the local community? New research published through the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) suggests not…

More than 700 of America's institutions of higher education couldn't claim to be vegetarian based on the record amount of pork they ate from the 2003 federal budget, according to the cover story of this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. The dollar value of college earmarks reached a record $2.013 billion in the current fiscal year's budget, 10 percent more than the previous high mark of $1.837 billion captured in FY 2002. The Chronicle reports the siphoned wealth was spread to 7 percent more schools in FY 2003 through 19 percent more earmarks. Earmarks for Congress's pet projects have exploded over the past three years — at the same time the federal budget has faced expanding deficits and Congress has called for universities to control spending. Academic pork has doubled since the $1.04 billion posted in FY 2000, while the number of individual earmarks has grown 2.5 times higher from 777 to 1,964. The research component of the FY 2003 academic earmarks totaled $1.445 billion, the Chronicle found, equaling 8 percent of the total FY 2001 federal obligations for academic research (…

Sloan Foundation exec says no At several intervals during the past 50 years, various reports have argued that the U.S. was or would soon be confronted with a shortage of scientists and engineers in various fields. If a crisis did arise, it could play havoc on local and state technology-based economic development efforts dependent on a technologically skilled workforce for innovation and growth. But is there a real risk? Michael Teitelbaum, program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, says no. He believes that this perception is mistaken for a multitude of reasons and suggests even policy solutions aimed to correct the alleged problem are misguided. Do We Need More Scientists?, an article in the Fall 2003 issue of Public Interest, summarizes Teitelbaum's conclusions and recommendations on what he perceives are more appropriate policies for encouraging scientific discovery and innovation. Teiltelbaum draws on a 1998 study by the US General Accounting Office and an early 2003 report from the RAND Institute to support his position. The GAO issued a critical assessment…