SSTI Digest

The White House Fiscal Year 2026 discretionary budget proposal outlines a significant shift in federal spending priorities, proposing substantial reductions in innovation and non-defense discretionary funding, which, if enacted by Congress, would impact scientific research and regional economic development support across numerous federal agencies. 

The initial release of the White House's FY2026 budget proposal is characterized as a "skinny budget," indicating that it provides a high-level overview of the administration's discretionary spending priorities without the detailed line-item specifics contained in a full budget request. The proposal aims for a $163 billion cut in non-defense discretionary funding, a 22.6% reduction from the previous fiscal year. 

The United States faces intense competition in global markets for advanced technology industries. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) article, "The State Hamilton Index: Most states underperform in advanced industries" by Meghan Ostertag reveals a concerning trend regarding the geographic distribution and overall strength of advanced industries within the U.S. The 2025 State Hamilton Index indicates that most U.S. states lag behind both the global average and China in their concentration of employment in advanced industries deemed crucial for economic growth and national security. Only four states don’t lag across multiple sectors, and only one beats China. 

The SSTI Board of Trustees has appointed Kristy Campbell, president & chief operations officer at Rev1 Ventures, and John Fernandez, chief executive officer at The Mill, as members of the board.  “I look forward to working with Kristy and John as new board members,” Dan Berglund, SSTI’s president, said with their appointments. “Both are proven, inspiring leaders, have been long time friends of SSTI, and demonstrated strong commitments to advancing the TBED community.”

SSTI has recently expanded its staff to include Aaron Hagar as their vice president for innovation finance. Hagar brings over twenty years of experience spanning biomedical research, heath care, public policy, and technology-based economic development to share with SSTI's members. He has significant experience building partnerships, creating innovative solutions, shaping public policy, and developing data-driven strategies.

America's Seed Fund returns to the J.W. Marriott in Austin, Texas, for the SBIR/STTR Spring Innovation Conference from June 9 -11.  SSTI Weekly Digest readers may use these discount codes to reduce their cost for attending:

The White House Fiscal Year 2026 discretionary budget proposal outlines a significant shift in federal spending priorities, proposing substantial reductions in non-defense discretionary funding, which, if enacted by Congress, would impact scientific research and regional economic development support across numerous federal agencies. 

The initial release of the White House's FY2026 budget proposal is characterized as a "skinny budget," indicating that it provides a high-level overview of the administration's discretionary spending priorities without the detailed line-item specifics contained in a full budget request. The proposal aims for a $163 billion cut in non-defense discretionary funding, a 22.6% reduction from the previous fiscal year. 

The AI market is projected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2023—a 25x increase in just 10 years, according to the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 2025 Technology and Innovation report. The technology will be leap-frogging other “frontier tech markets,” including the Internet of Things, which currently dominates 36% of the market for emerging platform technologies. The super-charged AI market will impact up to 40% of global jobs, both positively and negatively. How this growth will affect jobs in different countries and how the effects could be directed to increase fairness globally is of great concern to UNCTAD and the focus of the new report.

UNCTAD asserts that up to one-third of jobs in nations with advanced economies are at risk because of efficiency gains resulting from AI automation. "Workforces in advanced economies are at greater risk since more of their jobs involve cognitive tasks,” said the report authors, but added, “However, these economies are also better positioned than emerging and low-income economies to capitalize on the benefits of AI.”

SSTI’s recent webinar for its EDA-funded TBED Community of Practice work explored the emerging trend of creating centralized tech transfer offices (TTOs) serving multiple institutions. Centralized approaches are intended to more efficiently help develop and commercialize inventions from smaller or regional colleges and universities. Panelists Kayla Meisner of Kentucky Commercialization Ventures (KCV), Charles Layne of LaunchTN, and Carlos Baez from the Puerto Rico Science, Technology, and Research Trust highlighted the value centralized models bring to regions and the national landscape. 

May 20, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET | Zoom 

This webinar will explore how organizations can develop meaningful industry partnerships that drive tech-based economic development. The Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP) will share its approach to creating compelling value propositions for potential partners and converting these initial connections into lasting, mutually beneficial collaborations. Their AI initiative, AnalytiXIN, will serve as a case study, demonstrating the methods and principles that have made their industry engagement efforts successful.

Speakers: - Nathan Ringham, Vice President, Research and Insights (CICP) - Darshan Shah, Executive Vice President, Data and AnalytiXIN (CICP)

Register for this webinar here.

Most countries have dramatically increased their investments in R&D over the past two decades, with OECD nation spending reaching a record high nearly $1,600 of gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) per person in 2023 (PPP[1] converted), approximately triple the value recorded in 2000. Although the U.S. has an extremely strong R&D output, relatively smaller economies, like Israel and South Korea, lead when expenditures are standardized for better comparison across nations.

This edition of Useful Stats uses internationally comparable figures from the OECD’s Main Science and Technology Indicator (MSTI) database to benchmark R&D performance across OECD nations in both per person PPP-adjusted dollars and as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Examining the data in this manner provides potential context for understanding the priority countries set for becoming more research-intensive and, perhaps, more innovation-centered in future economic growth.

A recently published InfoChart from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) presents an annotated walk through federal R&D obligations from FY 1951 through 2024, explaining key events influencing key moments in the surges and downswings along the nation’s path to supporting discovery, research, development and innovation. The data is presented in constant 2017 dollars. 

One of the top perennial concerns of America’s manufacturing and business communities relates to the workforce. The main issues may vary year to year; examples include too few workers available, skill mismatch, poor work habits or preparedness because of non-work issues such as basic education attainment, drug use, prison records or lack of work ethic. Among factors complicating workforce development responses are the diverse and disparate skill needs across the spectrum of occupations and sectors, the rapid advancement of technological innovation, and the array of private and public skill development and training efforts. 

As a result, federal involvement in workforce development has crept into many programs and funding priorities where, traditionally, skill development and training did not reside. That might all be changing with the executive order President Trump signed on Wednesday, April 23 2025.