SSTI Digest

The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) has launched the FY 2021 $2 million STEM Talent Challenge to support programs to train science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) talent and fuel regional innovation economies across the nation. The challenge will provide funding for work-and-learn programs to increase America’s workforce in emerging and transformative sectors such as space commerce, aeronautics, digital manufacturing, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity.  Competitive applications will demonstrate how the program will develop or expand regional STEM workforce capacity to support entrepreneurial ventures, industries of the future, and other innovation-driven businesses. Competition applicants may request up to $250,000 for implementation of a 24-month workforce program that complements their region’s innovation economy.  A 1:1 funding match is required. The deadline to apply is Oct. 12, 2021. For more information, the 2021 STEM Talent Challenge notice of funding opportunity is available here.

Yesterday, the U.S. Small Business Administration issued 33 grant awards up to $125,000 each for specialized training, mentoring, and technical assistance for research and development (R&D)-focused small businesses under the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program.  FAST seeks to improve outcomes in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs for underserved communities by increasing participation from women-owned, rural-based, and socially or economically disadvantaged small businesses.

Early on Wednesday, the Senate passed a budget resolution that will serve as the framework for a human infrastructure bill. The current proposal is for $3.5 trillion in spending. This legislation, should it pass, seems likely to include substantial funding for regional innovation. More specifically, the Senate’s plans indicate that funding would support Regional Technology Hubs and other components of the US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA).  The budget resolution includes high-level directions to congressional committees on the amount of spending they will be allowed to propose within the $3.5 trillion. Senate commerce would have about $83 billion, and House science would have about $45 billion. While these committees are counterparts in many ways, the large difference is likely due to the Senate committee’s jurisdiction over transportation issues, which belong to a different committee in the House. Senate small business would receive $25 billion, and House small business would see $17.5 billion. The difference between these levels seems due to the Senate committee also having primary jurisdiction over some small business issues overseen by other…

Federal funding is a major source of support for the science and engineering (S&E) activities of the nation’s institutions of higher education (IHEs). This week’s edition of Useful Stats shows that in 2019 (the most recent year for which data is available), the vast majority — 87.6 percent or $33.4 billion— of that federal support came from only three agencies: the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Defense (DoD). This analysis builds on our previous article using NSF’s data from the Survey of Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions to show that while the remaining agencies contributed relatively little to the national S&E effort of IHEs, there was still a wide range in the mix of agency funding at the state level in 2019. Nationally, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) accounted for 59.4 percent ($22.6 billion) of all federal S&E support to IHEs in 2019, followed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (15.9 percent, $6.1 billion); the Department of Defense (DoD) (12.3 percent, $4.7 billion); the Department of Energy…

In an unexpected turn of events, some college students around the country have been logging into their accounts to check on account balances and finding them canceled. Many institutions of higher education across the country have been taking advantage of federal assistance provided through the CARES Act Higher Education Emergency Relief funds (HEERF) to cancel student debt. HEERF I, II and III represent three programs that Congress appropriated to higher education to help prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, including emergency financial grants to students. The City University of New York said it is providing one of the largest debt-forgiveness programs in the nation due to the pandemic in its announcement of the CUNY Comeback Program, a plan to erase as much as $125 million in outstanding tuition and fee balances for more than 50,000 CUNY students who experienced grave hardships during the pandemic using HEERF funds. Other examples of universities using the HEERF funds to cancel student debt include: The Community College of Philadelphia will use $2.75 million in stimulus funds to pay off outstanding balances for as many as 3,500 of its…

Developing local assets and nurturing local talent in science and engineering (S&E) is paramount to productive innovation economies. Institutions of higher education (IHEs) are arguably the most important elements of these local knowledge-capital assets — housing physical R&D infrastructure, training new scientists and engineers, and creating and disseminating new knowledge across the academic, public, and private sectors. As such, understanding how federal funding to support S&E at IHEs is dispersed across states can help local innovation leaders develop programs and policies to continue growing their local innovation economies. To assist in this goal, this edition of Useful Stats explores data from the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions. Specifically, this analysis examines state-level data for total S&E obligations to IHEs and the shares of total S&E funding by type of activity in 2019. Nationally in 2019, the federal government obligated $38.08 billion in science and engineering (S&E) support to 1,034 U.S. colleges and universities. As…

The U.S. National Science Foundation has announced the establishment of five new NSF INCLUDES Alliances to enhance preparation, increase participation and ensure the inclusion of individuals from historically underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The investment is part of an effort to address diversity, inclusion and participation challenges in STEM at a national scale. "Creating pathways to success for a STEM workforce reflective of the U.S. population is of national importance to ensuring America's competitiveness in a global research landscape," said Sylvia Butterfield, acting assistant director for NSF's Education and Human Resources Directorate, in a prepared announcement. "NSF INCLUDES Alliances provide a structure to address this issue and for the STEM enterprise to work collaboratively to achieve inclusive change." The new awardees will join a network of eight existing alliances and the NSF INCLUDES national network of more than 3,000 partners that are dedicated to broadening STEM participation. The five new alliances and more information is available here.

The National Science Foundation has announced the establishment of 11 new NSF National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes, reaching a combined investment of $220 million and including a total of 40 states when adding the original seven institutes announced last year. The institutes are expected to act as connections in a broader nationwide network and will be led by NSF in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Google, Amazon, Intel and Accenture. All but one of the 11 new institutes will be led by universities. The exception is the NSF AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (ALOE), which will be led by SSTI member, the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA). The new ALOE Institute will be headquartered at Georgia Tech. Led by GRA, the effort is expected to unite experts in computer science, AI, cognitive science, learning science and education from a consortium of several universities (Arizona State, Drexel, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Harvard, UNC-Greensboro); technical colleges in the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG); major industrial partners (…

Editor’s note: The Senate passed the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act on Aug. 10, 2021. This article has been updated to reflect the final amendments and new information on next steps for the legislation. This week, the Senate passed the bipartisan infrastructure agreement, formally, the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act. While small as a percentage of the trillion-dollar total, there are a number of proposed items that can support regional innovation economies, with broadband being the highest funded. Other proposals of interest include funding that will stimulate demand for clean energy innovations, further cybersecurity development and reauthorizing the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). Note that this analysis is based on the text of amendments available through congress.gov as of Aug. 11, 2021 and may be subject to change once the final bill text is made available. Technology and innovation highlights from the bill include the following: $65 billion for a variety of broadband deployment initiatives, as well as funding and policies to improve affordability. Investments that are intended to increase demand for…

The American Rescue Plan Act provides $10 billion for the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) as part of the national response to the coronavirus pandemic-induced recession. This funding is unlike other small business assistance programs funded during the emergency so far in that SSBCI specifically provides funds to states — at least $56 million per state — to use for their own capital access initiatives, including programs that make investments in small businesses. SSTI has made our brief, Addressing Capital Access in 2021, available for you to download. The paper is focused on helping states and their partners make the most of the opportunity presented by the newly-refunded State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI 2.0), which provides $10 billion to states to support capital access. Topics covered include a review of SSBCI 1.0, the current landscape for debt and investment access, and recommendations for states developing programs in 2021. Access your copy here.

The PitchBook-NVCA Venture Capital Monitor for the first half of 2021 reveals that the market is set to break a number of investing records, but strikingly, the record levels of investment activity are all being set by the later stages of investment. At the other end of the funnel, activity is increasing, but not at the same pace as the overall market. Through June, the market is on pace for $300 billion invested (nearly doubling 2020’s level) across more than 16,000 investments (a 25 percent increase on the previous record), leading to median venture capital (VC) deal sizes that are roughly 50 percent larger than in 2020 (the increases for angel and seed deals are much smaller). This explosion of investing activity is supported by what is sure to be a record year for exits — at $372 billion, the exit value through the first six months has already surpassed 2020’s record of $287 billion. First financings of startups in 2021 may approach 2019’s record of nearly 3,500 but has fallen to just 25 percent of all deals (from 40 percent 10 years ago). Angel and seed activity has fallen by more than 10 percentage points since 2015 to just 39 percent of all…

Earlier this week, the House science committee advanced a series of technology-focused bills, including a $7 billion authorization of regional technology hubs. This legislation completes the committee’s work to produce a companion to the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. The House and Senate legislation are not identical, however, and so the chambers will need to bring their versions into alignment. Among the key differences are that the House authorizes less funding for the program but also creates a new regional clean energy innovation program.