SSTI Digest

One of the few new spending bills to make it through the 2001 session of the Minnesota Legislature provides $10 million in seed money for technology commercialization through a new Biomedical Innovation and Commercialization Initiative (BICI – pronounced beach-ee). The BICI appropriation is contingent upon state economic development officials securing a three-to-one private sector match.



BICI is a collaborative economic development initiative involving the State of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota and the state’s medical research institutions, companies and investors. It establishes a commercial enterprise – independent of both the university and state government – to bridge the gap between academic basic research and the commercialization of new technologies.



The explicit mission of BICI is to identify and invest in biomedical ventures that have long-term commercial development potential. It targets biomedical research at the University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center, the area of academic basic research that has the most immediate commercial potential. Successful implementation of the BICI model could result in similar future ventures in other areas such as digital or media technology, nanotechnology or agriculture.



More information is available at: http://www.dted.state.mn.us/00x05f.asp and in the February 2001 concept report on the website of Minnesota Technology, Inc. http://www.minnesotatechnology.org/BICIReport.pdf

Ohio Governor Bob Taft last week signed legislation creating the Ohio Aerospace and Defense Council to examine state and federal laws, rules, and policies that affect the two industries and associated federal installations in Ohio. Ohio is home to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the state’s largest single-site employer, and the NASA Glen Research Center in Cleveland.



Six objectives are to be addressed by the council:

The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania has issued a Request for Proposals to develop an asset-mapping study of the nanotechnology sector in the four-state Philadelphia Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area.



A key objective of the engagement is to facilitate comparison of the region’s Nanotechnology sector with other regions and benchmark performance in this sector to enable longitudinal comparisons in the future. Another primary objective is to provide data and analysis critical to informing policy decisions for the Nanotechnology Institute. The study would secondarily provide information that could be used to promote Greater Philadelphia’s role as an early leader in Nanotechnology. Proposals are due August 15, 2001.



More information is available from Robert E. Gittler, Coordinator, Regional Initiatives, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania at robert@sep.benfranklin.org The RFP can be downloaded at http://www.sep.benfranklin.org/rfp.pdf

The Rhode Island Technology Council (RITEC) is launching a benchmarking survey this week of the state’s information technology (IT) industry to determine how the council and state economic development organizations can be most effective at addressing the sector’s needs in light of the continued restructuring of the national IT industry. The survey includes two components: a company survey to collect demographic and compositional information on the industry; and an IT professional survey for skill and training assessment.

Brain drains and a lack of technically skilled workers, both scientists and engineers, are commonly heard complaints of state and local tech-based economic development practitioners across the country. But are federal and state innovation policies part of the problem? Paul M. Romer, of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, says yes in Should the Government Subsidize Supply or Demand of in the Market for Scientists and Engineers?



Conclusions drawn from several studies indicate problems on the supply side are likely to continue for some time. A June survey from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) reveals the number of bachelor degrees awarded in engineering peaked at more than 77,000 in the mid-80s. During the past decade, while the demand for technical positions soared, the number of all engineering degrees awarded dropped to 63,000. Things are not bad, however, in all engineering fields; the number of biomedical and chemical engineering degrees granted doubled during the same time period.



Romer feels that U.S. innovation policy during the past 20 years has been too heavily focused on initiatives to expedite the process of developing and commercializing technological innovation, such as increased spending on R&D and R&D tax incentives, increase demand without considering the availability of the scientists and engineers required to support that demand, Romer argues. He contends this has been shortsighted and will be detrimental to continuing or sustaining the nation’s competitive position in a global economy.



Given that the key component of most research and innovation is knowledge capital, Romer contends government must increase the quantity of scientists and engineers, not simply the cost of the existing pool of available researchers.



Romer believes that better-defined goals and programs should be initiated in order to increase scientists and engineers in the workforce, including:

Women made significant progress in the sciences over the last two decades, but gains have stalled — and in some cases eroded — in engineering and computer sciences, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW). The downturn comes despite effective new programs to increase women's participation in these fields. 

With federal support for the National Institues of Health increasing substantially each year -- to the point now that NIH supports more than 50 percent of the federal basic research budget -- and some states directing millions of dollars each year into health and biotechnology research, one might stop to ask: is it worth it? If an objective of states' supporting basic research is economic development, and only five to seven percent of federally funded basic research is conducted by private industry according to the National Science Foundation, then the transfer from universities and additional "spillover" of academic research into the local economy must be significant to warrant long-term investment. So is it? 



An increasing library of econometric studies have been prepared looking at the influence of academic spillovers on issues such as corporate patenting and productivity (several have been discussed in the SSTI Weekly Digest: see 6/01/01, 11/17/00 and 8/25/00). A recent discussion paper released by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, using the pharmaceutical industry as a case study, suggests that the economic return on publicly funded basic research is substantial but on a time dimension that may be greater than most state and local leaders are anticipating. 



Using micro-level data on product innovation made available as a result of the rigorous review structure required to secure approval from the Food and Drug Administration, Stanford University's Andrew A. Toole found a one-percent increase in public support for basic research ultimately leads to a 2.0 - 2.4 percent increase in the number of commercially available new pharmaceutical compounds. "Ultimately" translates to a lag time between funding and commercialization of 17 to 19 years on average. His analysis is presented in The Impact of Public Basic Research on Industrial Innovation: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry . 



In order to estimate the timing, magnitude, and significance of public basic research on pharmaceutical product innovation, Toole gathered data from the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association. He then used regression analysis to determine lag time in pharmaceutical innovation under several alternative models. 



Toole chose the pharmaceutical industry for this analysis, due to the industry's structure and orientation toward science. He warns, unfortunately, that the unique structure of the pharmaceutical innovative process makes it difficult to apply the report's findings to other areas, but also urges future research to be directed at improving the understanding of innovation and R&D in other technological areas.



The full report can be obtained from SIEPR at: http://siepr.stanford.edu/papers/pdf/00-07.html

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge will deliver the keynote address at Creating Opportunity: Tools for Building Tech-Based Economies, SSTI’s Fifth Annual Conference, which will be held September 19-21, 2001 at the Omni William Penn in Pittsburgh. 



Gov. Ridge is recognized nationally as one of the leading governors in technology-based economic development. Under his leadership, the state has implemented a number of technology-based initiatives, including Pennsylvania New Economy Technology Scholarships; the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse; the Pennsylvania BioTech Strategy, which includes the creation of three Life Science Greenhouses; and, Lightning Manufacturing. 



With more than 20 sessions and four concurrent sessions running throughout the conference, this year’s conference will be the largest that SSTI has ever held. Topics to be covered include: organizing angel investor networks; slowing the brain drain; extending economic benefits of the New Economy to all regions; developing and implementing a tech-based economic development strategy; creating successful business-university partnerships; and, emerging ideas in tech-based economic development. 



This year, in addition to 12 great sessions on policies and practices for tech-based economic development, two separate tracks of inter-related sessions on critical themes have been added: 



Universities in today’s tech-based economy 

Whether they are educating future workers, conducting basic research, or creating technology that is commercialized, universities and colleges play a vital role in any tech-based economic development strategy. Creating Opportunity offers six breakout sessions this year to explore, develop, and refine the vital contributions of the academic research enterprise to a knowledge economy. 



Resources for building tech-based economies 

A flagging economy puts pressure on a company's bottom line and research budgets can feel the pinch at a time when increasing businesses' future technological competitiveness is most critical. State and local government revenues also tighten. Fortunately, there are billions of federal dollars available to assist companies and communities alike in all aspects of competing in the New Economy. Creating Opportunity is offering six sessions to conveniently learn the nuts and bolts of more than a dozen federal programs -- even veterans can learn something as the agencies discuss the priorities of the new Administration. 



For the full conference agenda and to register, visit: http://www.ssti.org/Conf01/conf01.htm [expired]

Albany, New York 

The Times Union reports the second coming of the Center for Economic Growth Technology Council, which, after eight years on hiatus, held a kick-off event Wednesday to launch several ambitious goals: establish two business accelerators, develop a technology roadmap of the region’s R&D assets, offer business and technical consulting services, and expand the area’s venture capital networking activities. The paper reports one of the accelerators will be geared toward nanotechnology firms. More information is available at: http://www.ceg.org/

The National Science Foundation has released Federal Funds for Research and Development: Fiscal Years 1999, 2000, and 2001, Vol. 49, presenting 111 detailed statistical tables. 



Tables 56-79 characterize federal R&D and R&D plant obligations at universities & colleges by basic versus applied research, by agency and by field of science for 1999, 2000 and 2001. Tables 82-87 present the 1999 data by geographic distribution (by state). This data can be standardized by population for interpretation. 



To present a different, perhaps more meaningful, perspective on the distribution across states, SSTI has prepared a table which provides the 1999 federal R&D and R&D plant obligations as an average per employed doctoral scientist and engineer in the state. The untested hypothesis is that R&D obligations would be a function more of the availability of an appropriately skilled labor pool to conduct research, rather than the total population. 



The table presents per capita federal R&D obligations by state as well for comparison: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/072001t.htm 

George Atkinson is taking a year-long leave of absence from his position as a professor in chemistry and optical sciences at the University of Arizona to serve as the first American Institute of Physics science fellow at the U.S. State Department. 



Margie Emmermann has been named Director of the Arizona Department of Commerce. For the past seven years, Ms. Emmermann has been the state's policy adviser to Mexico and liaison to the Hispanic Community. 



The National Science Foundation has named Judith A. Ramaley as the Foundation's new Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources (EHR). A biologist, Dr. Ramaley served most recently as president of the University of Vermont. 



New Technology Week reports William Schneider, president of International Planning Services, has been picked to chair the Defense Science Board. 



Dennis J. Sysko is serving as interim president of the Anne Arundel County High Technology Council, following the resignation of president John G. Rice. Mr. Sysko, who is currently serving as the group's treasurer, will perform both roles until a replacement president is elected in January. 

George Atkinson is taking a year-long leave of absence from his position as a professor in chemistry and optical sciences at the University of Arizona to serve as the first American Institute of Physics science fellow at the U.S. State Department.&nbsp