SSTI Digest

The State of Delaware has selected its first three Advanced Technology Centers (ATCs), public/private partnerships designed to bolster the state's technology base and to create and retain quality high-tech jobs. The centers will receive $2.31 million from the state's 21st Century Fund for their first year of operation and are eligible for two more years of state funding given satisfactory performance.

The centers selected are:

Advanced Technology Center for Medical Devices will catalyze partnerships between companies and universities, resulting in the development and commercialization of medical diagnostic screening tools based on analytical instruments coupled with sophisticated software. The center will receive $560,000 in state funding.

In partnership with the Ohio Department of Development, BP America, and the Great Lakes Industrial Technology Center, NASA Lewis Research Center has opened a technology based incubator. The Lewis Incubator for Technology (LIFT) will enable companies to gain comprehensive business, financial, and marketing assistance as they work to commercialize NASA-developed technologies. LIFT is located in 31,000 square feet of space at the BP America Research and Development Facility in Warrensville Heights, Ohio. Services available to the tenants include access to analytical laboratories, a reference library, and video conferencing facilities. As with other NASA supported incubators (SSTI Weekly Digest, May 3, 1996) LIFT has two major goals. First, the facility will give entrepreneurs, start-up companies and early stage companies access to NASA's expertise.

The South Florida Manufacturing Technology Center (SFMTC), a regional office of the Florida Manufacturing Extension Partnership, is currently seeking a Director. SFMTC is located in Pompano Beach, Florida and serves seven counties along Florida's southeast coast: Broward, Dade, Martin, Monroe, Okeechobee, Palm Beach, and St. Lucie. The Director will manage contracts, develop operational procedures, evaluate Center progress and monitor economic impacts on its clients and the manufacturing community, and communicate the Center's mission to government, industry and the community. The Director must interact with the SFMTC board, ensure accountability for project funding and administer the Center's budget. The Director is the contact point with the Florida Manufacturing Extension Partnership and is responsible to the FMEP director for program quality and performance.

President Clinton announced his intention to nominate three members to the National Science Board (NSB), an advisory body to the National Science Foundation. The three are:

Mary K. Gaillard of Berkeley, California, a professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Eamon M. Kelly of New Orleans, Louisiana, president of Tulane University. Dr. Kelly is an economist and the former chairman of the Association of American Universities.

Richard A. Tapia of Houston, Texas, is the Noah Harding Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University. He formerly served on the National Board of Directors of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Sciences.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking candidates to fill the position of Associate Director for Regional Programs. Responsibilities will include the creation, planning, evaluation and maintenance of a national network of state and local technology assistance providers to develop and enhance their capabilities to meet the needs of small and medium sized manufacturers. Responsibilities also include supervising and assessing the staff and operations of the Regional Programs Office; managing, planning, and implementing programmatic policies within the Regional Programs Office; and overseeing and maintaining the Regional Programs budget.

The House-passed National Institutes of Health (NIH) appropriations for FY 97 included a problematic provision that would have changed the formula for awarding Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects at the Institutes. The provision would allow NIH to fund SBIR research only if the average score of the pool of small business proposals met or exceeded the score of basic research proposals submitted by universities and other research centers.

Several representatives raised objections to the limitation, noting that the SBIR program deals with applied research which cannot be directly compared with basic research proposals. In addition to the difference in the type of research performed, SBIR supporters pointed out that the vastly different evaluation and scoring processes make it difficult to compare the two types of proposals. They argued the provision would curtail the number of grants NIH could make to small business.

President Clinton announced his intention to nominate five members to the National Science Board (NSB), an advisory body to the National Science Foundation. The five are:

John A. Armstrong of Amherst, Massachusetts, the former Vice President of Science and Technology and member of the Corporate Management Board at IBM.

M.R.C. Greenwood of Davis, California, Chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz. She served as the Associate Director or Science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from November 1993 to May 1995.

Stanley Vincent Jaskolski of Cleveland, Ohio, the Chief Technical Officer and Vice President of Technical Management for the Eaton Corporation, Cleveland, Ohio. He will become president of the Industrial Research Institute in May 1997.

The California Manufacturing Technology Center has begun a search process for qualified applicants to fill a number of economic development-oriented engineering positions. The CMTC seeks applicants with over eight years of hands-on manufacturing experience to: define and develop proposals, present to potential clients, perform and manage projects, and build a network of consultants.

Qualified candidates will have an engineering/science degree (Master's or MBA preferred) and excellent presentation and interpersonal skills. Sales or marketing training and/or experience is a plus. The application process will be open at least through October, 1996. If your qualifications meet the requirements of CMTC, please send your resume to: California Manufacturing Technology Center, P.O. Box 2225, Hawthorne, CA 90250-2225, ATTN: Human Resources

For more information, contact Kathy Pearson at 310-263-3084.

Increased company support of R&D offset reduced Federal funding in 1994 and contributed to an overall increase in U.S. industrial R&D, to $119.6 billion, according to the National Science Foundation's Survey of Industrial Research and Development for 1994.

The Survey shows that firms spent $119.6 billion on research and development (R&D) in the United States, 2 percent more than during 1993. Company funding continued to increase, from $94.6 billion to $97.1 billion, as it has each year since 1953. Federal funding decreased from $22.8 billion to $22.5 billion, continuing a trend that began in 1988. After adjusting for inflation, company-funded R&D rose 0.6 percent and Federally funded R&D fell 3.5 percent.

The U.S. House of Representatives on a vote of 246-179 on Wednesday approved an appropriations bill that includes funding for the U.S. Department of Commerce. Programs affected by the bill include the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) and Advanced Technology Program (ATP), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Information Infrastructure Grants (IIG).

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has collected and provided information on fiscal year 1993 costs for professional staff, managers and executives at the Department of Defense's (DOD) Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC). FFRDCs were established during World War II to meet the special research needs that the federal and private sector could not provide. Over the years the number of FFRDCs have varied, but in fiscal year 1993 there were 39, with 10 sponsored by DOD.

The GAO found that the average base salary for FFRDC executives, managers and professional staff was $73,000.

The average employer cost of benefits for all FFRDC personnel ranged from 19 percent to 45 percent of salaries, and executives' benefits had the greatest variance, ranging from 19 percent to 54 percent of salaries. The GAO calculated that the average total compensation in fiscal year 1993 for all FFRDC employees was $90,000.

Science and Engineering Indicators - 1996 is available from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science Board. The report is both a reference document and a policy document that provides an extensive array of data. The 1996 report has expanded to include output as well as input indicators as well as some indicators of the impact and outcome of science and engineering in the U.S.

Some of the new topics in the 1996 report include: