SSTI Digest

Thirty two industry-led workforce training partnerships from across the country were announced as the grant winners of the $500 million Good Jobs Challenge by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Selected from 509 proposals, the regional partnerships are focused on removing barriers to training and are expected to increase more equitable labor participation with a focus on 15 key industries. Good Jobs Challenge winners are expected to jumpstart the development and expansion of training programs that are tailored to each community. Awardees are located in 31 states and Puerto Rico. More than 50,000 workers are expected to be placed into jobs through the Challenge, with the majority of those (29 percent) expected in the healthcare industry. Information technology (15 percent), manufacturing (14 percent), energy and resilience (13 percent), and transportation, distribution and logistics (10 percent) are other industries that will benefit from the workforce training programs. America’s supply chains are the focus of 12 Good Jobs Challenge awardees that will include preparing workers for shipbuilding jobs, upskilling manufacturing workers, and…

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced nine additional states whose SSBCI plans have been approved: Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Vermont. This is in addition to the five states approved earlier this year: Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan and West Virginia. The state plans for the awards will support underserved businesses, innovation programs, investing for startups and more, detailed below. Arizona has been approved for $111 million across three different state programs. Two venture capital programs, Arizona Venture Co-Invest and Arizona Multi-Fund Venture, will split $87 million of the total approved funds. The rest of the allocated funds will go towards the Arizona Loan Guarantee Program. The three programs will all aim to support underserved businesses by creating greater access to capital.  Connecticut has been approved for $119 million, which will be allocated to CT Innovations Equity Fund, a venture capital program, and CT Works Fund, a loan participation program. The state will also be launching two new funds from Connecticut Innovations, The Connecticut Future Fund and…

Amid a public market slowdown, inflation concerns and tightening monetary environment, the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2022 indicates that most investors continued their COVID-era levels of activity through the second quarter of the year. While observed investment deal counts are down, PitchBook has already identified a total investment value of more than $144 billion across angel, seed and VC deals for the first half of 2022 — an amount that would have represented a strong annual total prior to 2021. This interpretation of the data depends on PitchBook’s estimates of deal activity, which report what the platform believes occurred during the quarter but will only appear in the data once more deals are disclosed. PitchBook typically experiences under-counts in recent quarters due to limited disclosure requirements for private investments. The differences between the observed and estimated activity are dramatic. Based on observed data (i.e., deals that have been discovered by, or reported to, PitchBook) alone, there were approximately 1,000 fewer deals in Q2 2022 (at 3,374 deals) than in any quarter since the beginning of 2021. But when looking at the…

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is breaking with tradition this week and for the first time released application data before it formally accepts applications for the NSF Engines program, which will provide up to $160 million of funding for up to 10+ years to establish each regional-scale innovation ecosystem Engine. The nearly 700 concept outlines have been published to help submitters in preparing successful proposals, with the belief that the applications and subsequent Engines will be strengthened if applicants are able to find one another and collaborate. NSF has also announced the Type-2 award deadlines for the Regional Innovation Engines program. NSF has made application data public and open-sourced, available as a table and map. Location of submitters along with titles, summaries, and contacts are just some of the provided information. It is their hope that collaboration between applicants will both strengthen individual applications and produce stronger awardees. More information on this data and how to use it can be found here. NSF announced the following key deadlines for the Type 2 awards: Letters of Intent: Due Dec. 15, 2022, at 5 p…

This week, Congress approved a new version of legislation to incentivize semiconductor manufacturing facilities, create a Regional Technology Hubs program, and reauthorize many science-related agencies. The Senate passed the bill on the 27th, and the House passed the legislation a day later. The bill’s latest nickname is “Chips and Science,” a reference to the presence of appropriations for semiconductor manufacturing incentives and R&D (previously authorized when the “CHIPS” act was added to the FY 2021 defense authorization bill), as well as many authorization provisions for other innovation and research activities that have previously been included in USICA and COMPETES.  CHIPS funding The CHIPS portion of the bill is the only part that would be funded at the time of its passage. These provisions include the following: $39 billion in grants and loans to encourage the construction or expansion of semiconductor fabrication, packaging or R&D facilities, plus the creation of a related manufacturing investment tax credit $11 billion for semiconductor-related R&D through the Department of Commerce (Commerce),…

Entrepreneurs learned more about small business funding opportunities from federal agencies with Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs during America’s Seed Fund Week last week. The $4 billion funding program, which is currently up for reauthorization, is celebrating 40 years of providing funding to small businesses each year in a variety of technology areas. Videos, including advice from program managers, and resources from each participating federal agency are available online. The week included America’s Seed Fund rebranding initiative, including the beta launch of their new website, which has been redesigned to be more informative and user friendly, along with a new Lab2Market Hub, which will connect users to sources of funding.  Attendees were taught more about the SBIR and STTR processes, through information from the SBA, which walks through the three phases of the process: Phase I, proof-of-concept; Phase II, technology development; and Phase III, commercialization. John Williams, director of innovation and technology for the Office of Investment and Innovation (OII) within the…

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo led the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s (NACIE) first meeting since being re-established, where she charged the council with identifying and developing roadmaps for three “transformative achievements” that will “serve as the core of an American National Entrepreneurship Strategy” to “improve our prosperity and strengthen our economic and national security.” Once the moonshots are decided upon, Raimondo said the council will recommend how the country can develop the technologies to achieve the goals. More specifically, the council has been tasked with providing recommendations on how to broadly support innovation and entrepreneurship, ranging from growing STEM workforces to removing barriers faced by entrepreneurs, reflective of NACIE’s goal of providing policy and legislative recommendations to further the innovation economy across the U.S.   More information on NACIE can be found here.

In fiscal year 2021, the nationwide success rate of applicants for National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I awards decreased slightly from FY 2020. This continued a downward trend over recent years. The success rate for NIH SBIR/STTR Phase I was nearly 13 percent (647 of 5,132 approved) in FY 2021, a decrease from nearly 14 percent (636 of 4,684 approved) in FY 2020 and from nearly 16 percent for all proposals submitted over the past decade. SSTI’s analysis for this article is based on SBIR/STTR application and award data recently released by NIH. For FY 2020 and 2021, Minnesota experienced the greatest increase in share of all applications (plus 1 percent), while Illinois saw the largest drop in its share (minus 1 percent). California-based companies had the most Phase I proposals, consisting of 21 percent of all proposals both years. California also had the highest numerical increase in applications submitted (119), while Illinois experienced the largest drop (minus 17). In FY 2020, just two states (North Dakota and Idaho) did not have any companies submit SBIR or STTR…

With the return of congressionally-directed spending — more commonly known as “earmarks” — for the FY 2022 budget, nearly 5,000 projects received more than $9.6 billion in such funding. The return of the earmarks followed a 10-year absence after the practice was banned in 2011. SSTI’s review of the spending data, which was collected by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) from the congressional appropriations committees, showed that projects related to technology-based economic development (TBED) were included in the funding. A number of federal agencies that regularly fund TBED-related projects had a portion of their budgets subjected to earmarks. SSTI’s review identified projects at agencies including: Agricultural Research Service ($62 million for 5 projects); National Aeronautics and Space Administration ($22 million for 21 projects); National Institute of Standards and Technology ($163 million for 27 projects); and, Small Business Administration ($83 million for 128 projects). Examples of funded project titles that appear to have a connection to TBED strategies include: “Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Innovation Equipment;” “East Palo Alto Small Business Incubator…

Since the inception of cryptocurrency mining over a decade ago, the state of New York has become a hotspot for the digital coins, encompassing 19.9 percent of the total U.S. hashrate, or the collective computing power of miners. However, concerns over the environmental impacts of, and high electricity demands for, these mining operations have been increasingly thrust into the spotlight. With the goal of addressing the above, two highly contested bills have been making their way through the legislative system in New York. New York’s Assembly Bills A7389C and A9275, have been passed by the legislature and, if signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, would establish a moratorium on new and renewed air permits for fossil fuel power plants used for crypto mining and establish a state crypto and blockchain study task force respectively. Hochul has previously stated her desire to ensure that any legislation has a balance between economic benefits and environmental consequences. She has not indicated what action she plans to take on the bills. According to the New York Times, Hochul likely has until Dec. 31 to either sign or veto the bills. According to an article by the…

With a $1 billion investment over the next three years, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) will be a standalone agency within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is designed to produce quicker research outcomes. Published reports indicate multiple states are currently positioning themselves to host the headquarters of the new agency, with California, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, having stated their interest in hosting the new headquarters. States are making similar arguments as to why their state should host the ARPA-H headquarters. Most arguments, like that of Massachusetts, include citation of prestigious universities, research facilities and biotech companies in the state. Other states, such as Texas, make the argument that there is high demand for medical services in states that may not be thought of initially as healthcare and bioscience hubs. ARPA-H was proposed in 2021 and is intended to be similarly structured to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), but ARPA-H will be focused on healthcare technology innovation and finding cures for diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s…

In November 2021, the seasonally adjusted quit rate reached a record of 3.0 percent, a significant increase from the previous highest rate of 2.4 percent. This phenomenon of rising quit rates is currently referred to as the “Great Resignation.” Investigating the existing data on labor turnover, the historical quit rate data, and the reasons for the rise of quit rates in 2021 are the focus of a recent article from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Labor Review.