SSTI Digest

Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development for the past five-and-a-half years, Sam McCullough is resigning effective October 25.

Doug Rothwell, President and CEO of MEDC, has announced his resignation with the end of Governor John Engler's term in December.

The Rhode Island Economic Policy Council has named Jerry Schaufeld as director of the Samuel Slater Technology Fund.

Envirogen, Inc. cofounder Ronald Unterman will be the executive director of the newly created Slater Center for Marine & Environmental Technologies. The center was created through the merger of two existing Slater centers.

Kathleen Wise is the new Director of Programs for the New York Office of Science, Technology and the Advancement of Research. She fills the position vacated this summer by Keith Servis.

At its August 28th meeting, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) approved sending a letter to President Bush urging him to "improve funding levels for physical sciences and certain areas of engineering" as the Administration prepares the FY 2004 federal budget request. The letter also encourages the federal government to establish a graduate fellowship program to attract more students into critical fields of science and engineering.

Considerable debate has been held regarding the past two federal budgets as appropriations for R&D in the life sciences, particularly within the National Institutes of Health, have grown faster than funding levels for the other sciences.

For the first time, the PCAST position expresses concern for an R&D imbalance at the highest levels of the Administration; John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is a co-chair for PCAST.

Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Townsend recently announced the release of Founders of Maryland Bioscience and Medical Instrument Companies, a report on the career pathways taken by founders of biotechnology companies in Maryland.

Funded by the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), the report is part of the Bioscience Dialogue, a collaborative effort within the state's biotechnology industry to identify issues of importance to its growth. The $30,000 report traces the background of 276 company founders in Maryland and highlights these findings in bio-entrepreneurship:

A public entity setting up a satellite office for promotion and business recruitment is not new. Many state economic development departments have done it for years in foreign countries to encourage international trade. State film promotion boards do it in Hollywood to attract movie projects to their home states.

But the University of Wisconsin has added a twist to the field office concept that is new and perhaps somewhat controversial.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported last week that the University of Wisconsin was establishing a patent licensing office in San Diego. The decision is reportedly the first of its kind by a U.S. academic institution.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans has awarded a $6.44 million grant, the largest-ever economic development grant given by the Bush Administration, to Advancing California’s Emerging Technologies (ACET) to expand the Oakland Alameda Bio Tech Incubator to a 40,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art laboratory.

Once completed, the newly expanded building will be the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi, ACET director Sam Doctors said in a press statement. Housing nearly 40 high tech, biotechnology, environmental and energy start-up companies, the incubator will include fully equipped laboratory and office space, videoconferencing facilities, and other shared amenities.

Manufacturing is a robust driver of California's economy according to a Manufacturing Matters: California's Performance and Prospects, a new report prepared by the Milken Institute. The analysis was prepared for the California Manufacturing and Technology Association.

Milken found that the share of wages dependent upon manufacturing is above the national average. Average manufacturing wage and income was $54,600 in 2000 for California; the national average was only $43,400. Average California wages in computers and machinery is almost double the national average. Milken concludes these variances make California manufacturers targets for other state's industrial recruitment efforts.

Many efforts to encourage young Americans to pursue careers in science, engineering and manufacturing took advantage of students having the summer off from regular classes. Programs range from one-week science camps to season-long internships and cooperative workstudies. To help other communities begin planning for the end of the 2003 school year, SSTI highlights a few examples from this past summer in this article.

In each of the past two years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published a list of the top 100 metro areas based on the total distribution of NIH funds. This year's table breaks down the total number of awards and dollar amounts by type of funding: research grants, training grants, fellowships, R&D contracts, and other awards.

New York City joined Boston this year as the only two metro areas to surpass $1 billion in total NIH funding. San Diego, Philadelphia and Baltimore round out the top five.

The NIH 2001 table is available at: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/award/trends/citytop100fy01.htm