SSTI Digest

An update to Louisiana: Vision 2020, a strategic plan to improve the Louisiana economy, calls for creating more quality jobs in the state's high growth sectors. First released by the Louisiana Economic Development Council in 1998, the newly revised plan also stresses the need to place increased importance on early childhood education, teacher quality and math and reading performance among high school students as keys to boosting student achievement.

Louisiana: Vision 2020, 2003 Update centers around three goals designed to accomplish 27 quantifiable objectives. Goal One, which sets up the next two goals, calls for the state to reinvent itself as a Learning Enterprise, "a rich, diverse, complex organism in which all businesses, institutions, and citizens are actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge."

The business incubation industry has grown dramatically since 1998, both in the number of programs in operation and the depth and breadth of services they offer, according to 2002 State of the Business Incubation Industry, a recent report by the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA).

NBIA regularly surveys business incubators throughout North America to identify trends in the industry. The organization's 2002 report highlights survey data collected in 2001.

“In 2001 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 35,000 start-up companies that provided full-time employment for nearly 82,000 workers and generated annual earnings of more than $7 billion,” JoAnn Rollins, NBIA director of membership, said in a press statement.

Corporate, community and independent foundations can be significant sources of funding for local and regional technology-based economic development initiatives. Unfortunately, the first look at growth and giving estimates for 2002 and 2003, suggests foundations may be less charitable than previous years to new and existing grantees.

Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates: 2002 Preview, prepared by The Foundation Center, projects that giving by the country's nearly 62,000 grantmaking foundations in 2002 was $30.3 billion, down less than one percent from the $30.5 billion recorded in 2001. This relatively stable level of giving followed six consecutive years of double-digit percentage growth in foundation support.

A recent study released by the AeA reported a decline of 560,000 high-tech jobs in the U.S. over the period from January 2001 to December 2002. However, AeA’s Tech Employment Update may not show the true magnitude of the decrease in high-tech jobs, as the AeA definition of high-tech excludes many industrial sectors with significant R&D investments.

Using a broader definition developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals high tech employment fell by 602,000 jobs. The BLS definition was updated by Daniel Hecker in "High-Technology Employment: A Broader View" in the June 1999 issue of Monthly Labor Review.

Two of SSTI's sister organizations for promoting technology-based economic development (TBED) had items of potential interest to the readers of the SSTI Weekly Digest in their e-newsletters this week. The highlights below include links for more information.

The Institute for Government Innovations has announced it is accepting applications for the 17th Annual Innovations in American Government Awards, ultimately to identify outstanding examples of creative problem solving in the public sector.

Innovations in American Government encompasses all levels of American government, focusing on domestic programs. Innovations that arise within defense and international agencies are eligible if they have significant domestic policy content, such as job training, base conversion, procurement reform, energy conservation or environmental protection. Weapons systems will not be considered.

The awards cycle consists of four rounds, which will result in 15 finalists. Five winners will be selected in May 2004 to receive $100,000 each.

The Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation has launched a two-phase, $30 million program intended to accelerate the development of Ontario's biotechnology cluster. The Biotechnology Cluster Innovation Program (BCIP) will support biotechnology infrastructure projects that will help create new companies.

BCIP is expected to support projects such as commercialization centers, research parks and other regional initiatives that demonstrate entrepreneurship and innovation. The program also will fund projects that integrate biotechnology into knowledge-based and traditional industry sectors such as photonics, information technology, automotive, chemicals, agriculture, and forestry.

Most practitioners who have been in the tech-based economic development field long enough know the presence of a strong research university can make the job much easier. New innovations and technologies to commercialize through licensing and spinoff companies, research facilities and experts to partner with local companies, and a constant supply of fresh graduates for the workforce are just a few of the benefits a research institution can offer the local and regional economy.

The National Center for Small Communities (NCSC) is offering a new toolkit to help small communities establish more competitive positions in the knowledge economy through aggressive information technology adoption strategies. Following in the footsteps of NCSC's first (1999) Internet guide, Getting Online 2.0: a small-town guide to creating 21st-century communities moves small communities further along the information-technology path by providing updated and more in-depth information and resources.

The guide helps small community leaders to:

Factors such as globalization, trade liberalization and consumer preferences have changed the way agricultural research is conducted, and advances in biotechnology and genomics, ecosystem science and social science have altered the overall agricultural landscape. However, the United States' leading agricultural research service is not quite ready to adapt to this changing environment with its traditional organizational structure, states a new report published by the National Academies.

A technically-skilled workforce is one of the elements required for a tech-based economy, so the issue of stopping the brain drain is of critical importance to some regions and states.  The choice for some states, it has been observed, is to turn into retirement homes or to retain their college graduates; in short, to avoid losing their minds.  Maine, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are just a few of the states that have been looking at the issue.

A recent study by the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement finds that State University System Centers and Institutes (C&Is) in Florida are cost-effective and creative settings for scientific discovery, technological innovation, policy development, teaching and instruction and public outreach activities. Public Postsecondary Centers and Institutes, a 175-page comprehensive review of C&Is in the state of Florida, also finds that the economic benefits of C&Is extend broadly throughout Florida affecting job creation, gross regional product, personal income, state taxes, and other direct financial benefits. According to the report, approximately 50 percent of all time spent by C&Is in FY 2000-01 was spent on research activities, 30 percent on instructional activities and 20 percent was devoted to service to the community and professional organizations.