SSTI Digest

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

With the end of the current fiscal year just three months away, the House Committee on Appropriations is set to finish marking up all of its FY 2023 funding bills by the end of this week. Similar to last year. the committee’s actions come before Congress has agreed to an overall spending level. Due to the potential for substantial changes when the final FY 2023 budget is passed, this article only covers specific funding levels that are a high priority for the tech-based economic development (TBED) field.

A new report from the U.S. Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund shares performance data from federally certified CDFIs for FY 2020. Just five of the CDFIs covered in the data are certified as venture funds — a sharp decline from the 14 that were included in the FY 2019 report. However, FY 2020 saw 119 transactions listed as equity investments, an increase from 90 in the prior year.

Total R&D in the U.S. grew from $666.9 billion in 2019 to an estimated $708 billion in 2020, according to recent data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) examination of R&D performance in the United States over the past two decades. These findings follow additional trends in the report demonstrating the expanding R&D occurring in the U.S.

Additional metrics explored in the NCSES data are national R&D intensity, R&D to GDP ratio, and R&D by performer, source, and type. The report found that R&D intensity has been steadily growing by an average of 3.8 percent annually from 2010 to 2019, a significant increase from the previous decade, where the average annual growth rate was 2.1 percent. The R&D to GDP ratio was 3.12 percent in 2019 and is estimated to be about 3.39 percent in 2020. A ratio above 3.0 percent is recognized by R&D policy analysts as a high achievement.

Although Americans perceptions on the economy dipped late last year, their financial well-being increased and hit its highest level since 2013, when the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System survey began. The results of the latest wide-ranging survey, reported in the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2021, also revealed the share of prime-age adults not working because they could not find work had returned to pre-pandemic levels; more adults would be able to cover a $400 emergency expense should one arise than at any point in the survey history; and, 15 percent of workers said they switched jobs in the previous year, with 60 percent of those reporting that the new job was better overall. The number of student loan borrowers who are behind on their payments declined compared to prior to the pandemic and self-reported financial well-being rose strongly with education.

Chicago has seen 18 percent growth in its technology ecosystem (i.e. technology occupations in technology industries, non-technology occupations in technology industries, and technology occupations in non-technology industries) in the last decade compared to a 1 percent growth in the overall economy, according to the Chicago Tech Effect report from Chicagoland Chamber of Congress and HR&A Advisors. The report might serve as a model for other areas examining the importance of technology in their region’s economy. Chicago’s tech ecosystem employs over 8 percent of the city’s workforce and accounted for 87 percent of new jobs in the area within the last decade, according to the report. “Chicago is fueling upward mobility and greater economic equality,” according to the report, with the median wage in the tech ecosystem 1.5 times higher than the median wage for the overall economy. Further, about 50 percent of tech jobs in Chicago are considered nontraditional (i.e. non-technology occupations in technology industries), which allows a greater number of individuals to participate in the field.  

President Biden announced his intent to nominate Arati Prabhakar to serve as the next director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and once confirmed she would also become his chief science advisor. The nomination earned praise from members of Congress, scientists, R&D advocates, and former OSTP directors of both Democratic and Republic administrations. The nomination is historic with Prabhakar being the first woman, immigrant, or person of color nominated to serve as Senate-confirmed director of OSTP. She previously led the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 1993 to 1997, starting when she was 34 years old and being the first woman to hold that position.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) last week announced a new funding opportunity that includes two programs designed to strengthen equitable economic development strategies across the country. One program will add staff resource to local organizations focused on improving economic resilience and competitiveness in distressed regions across the country, while the second will provide technical assistance to enable organizations serving underserved populations and communities to participate in economic development planning and projects.