SSTI Digest

Vulnerabilities in the international networks that supply goods and services needed for finished products used by the Department of Defense were exposed to a higher degree during the pandemic, and became the subject of a congressional Armed Services task force. The bipartisan Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force was established to make the security of the U.S. supply chain a legislative priority, and their recent report details actionable legislative proposals to mitigate risks that could be considered for the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The task force held a series of roundtables that solicited input from former and current DOD officials as well as leading experts representing major industry associations, think tanks, academia, and non-traditional industry and found that DOD lacked visibility on the supply chain and, thus, cannot build resilience and mitigate risk without a firm understanding of where its materials and supplies are sourced and manufactured. However, the task force reports that the information is within reach and that DOD must use the available tools, scale efforts, and partner with industry to achieve supply chain…

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $60 million in funding for its largest-ever cohort of university-based Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs) to assist small- and medium-sized manufacturers in reducing their carbon emissions and lowering energy costs. The new cohort of IACs at 32 universities will focus on improving productivity, enhancing cybersecurity, promoting resiliency planning, and providing trainings to entities located in disadvantaged communities. As part of a new pilot project, some of the IACs will expand to the commercial building market and partner with community colleges and technical programs to train diverse students and professionals to conduct energy-efficiency assessments of small to medium-sized buildings, including those located in disadvantaged communities.   The IAC program is one of DOE’s longest-running programs managed by the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) and has provided nearly 20,000 no-cost assessments for small- and medium-sized manufacturers and more than 147,000 recommendations for improvement measures. Assessments typically identify more than $130,000 in potential annual savings opportunities. …

Falling demand for office real estate and public transit, greater need for flexible child care and requirements for reskilling are some of the insights gained into the future of Massachusetts’ workforce. A recent report released by the Massachusetts Governor’s Office which draws extensively on material prepared by McKinsey and Company shines a light on a post-pandemic outlook for a state that has been heralded as one of the most attractive states for citizens to live, enjoying the third-highest per-capita income, a thriving venture capital market and a growing concentration of entrepreneurial start-ups. Yet, as the report notes, “Despite these competitive advantages, the effects of COVID-19 have profoundly challenged the Commonwealth.” The report explores what work could look like in Massachusetts in both the near term (2025) and five years beyond that, including implications for economic sectors, commercial centers, local downtowns, and more. It anchors its findings in four overall themes: Changing ways of working, such as remote and hybrid arrangements, may shift urban core activities with far-reaching implications on transit, urban vitality, housing, local…

Today, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced funding opportunities for the $3 billion Congress provided the agency in the American Rescue Plan Act. Funds are available through six distinct challenges, with separate goals and application processes/deadlines for each. The Build Back Better Regional Challenge, funded at $1 billion, may be the most substantial opportunity for tech-based economic development (TBED) organizations, but each of the six can support innovation economies — particularly now that TBED is an explicit component of EDA’s investment priorities. EDA is making the $3 billion available across six funding streams: Build Back Better Regional Challenge ($1 billion) – to support “transformational” investment to 20-30 regions by catalyzing or scaling regional industry clusters (read the full notice of funding opportunity [NOFO]). Good Jobs Challenge ($500 million) –  to strengthen workforce programs through system development, program design and program implementation (NOFO). Economic Adjustment Assistance ($500 million) – to make flexible investments in local economic development needs from planning to public works (NOFO).…

The House Committee on Appropriations advanced an FY 2022 funding bill that provides for substantial increases to many science and innovation programs. The Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill includes $50 million for the Build to Scale program — a top priority for SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council, $275 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, $9.6 billion for the National Science Foundation and more. Highlights from the bill for regional innovation economies follows: Economic Development Administration Build to Scale – $50 million (+ $12 million from FY 2021) STEM Talent Challenge – $10 million (+ $8 million) National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership – $275 million (+ $125 million) Manufacturing USA – $56.5 million (+ $40 million, to fund two new institutes) Minority Business Development Agency – $70 million (+ $22 million) National Science Foundation – $9.6 billion (+ $1.1 billion) White House Office of Science and Technology Policy – $7 million (+ $2 million) The next step for this bill is to pass the full House. However, it is not known when the House will take it up for consideration…

Last week, SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council chair Ben Johnson (also of BioSTL) testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Small Business about the role that innovation plays in job creation and how the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Regional Innovation Clusters (RIC) and Growth Accelerators Fund Competition (GAFC) support these efforts. In his testimony, Johnson spoke to how the needs of innovation-based companies differ from those of Main Street businesses: “The types of support needed to mature a technology from idea to market readiness are different than the supports needed to manufacture or market a widget. … The types of capital raised by innovation-based businesses are different as these companies take longer to mature to revenues. … And, the networks of industry-specific expertise … need to be deeper in defined expertise, than broad networks of business, finance, or marketing mentorship that is generally applicable across all types of business.” Johnson also spoke to the value of SBA’s innovation programs, with a particular emphasis on RIC as a tool to provide businesses within a specific…

Editor's note: SSTI discovered that NASA updated their data which was used in this article after its publication. Specifically, the update included previously omitted 2020 application and awards data for Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, and Nevada; and 2014 data for Iowa. While the changes to the data were minute, we strive to provide the most accurate and reliable data available. As such, the article and the interactive graphic below have been updated to reflect these changes. A helpful metric used by organizations dedicated to supporting technology startups and bolstering local innovation economies is the success rate of companies applying to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Understanding how successful local companies are at submitting quality applications and winning SBIR/STTR awards can better assist in designing outreach, education, technical assistance, mentorship, and other entrepreneurial support programs. This edition of Useful Stats examines recently updated NASA data on the agency’s SBIR/STTR application success rates by state from 2019 to 2020. Nationally, NASA’s…

President Joe Biden nominated Laurie Locascio, Ph.D., to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) within the U.S. Department of Commerce and serve as Undersecretary for Standards and Technology. Locascio is currently the vice president for research at the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where she oversees the research and innovation enterprise of the two campuses. Prior to her work there, Locascio had a long career as a researcher, innovator and scientific leader at NIST, where she most recently served as the acting principal deputy director and associate director for laboratory programs. She received a B.Sc. in chemistry from James Madison University, a M.Sc. in bioengineering from the University of Utah, and a Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. As a biomedical researcher, she has published more than 100 scientific papers and 11 patents over the course of her career.

Whether or not your state embraced strict measures in an attempt to reduce virus spread, the current pandemic has created the need for reflection and revision of how each of us go about our lives. The same opportunity has arisen for the public and private sectors to rethink how they engage in many core functions.  Civic leaders in Arkansas did just that and today released a strategic plan with recommendations to guide economic development in the new era.  Its central themes, including strong focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, and talent, could have broader applicability to other states as we move forward. Innovation and R&D figure prominently in the state’s new direction: “To create meaningful change in the Arkansas economy, the state must embrace innovation as a critical driver of economic prosperity. This will require a cultural shift incorporating robust and long-term investments in the innovation ecosystem … .” For conventional economic development practices, this means revisiting the state’s “incentives and metrics to align them with knowledge-based economic development priorities and support for innovation.”  The plan also calls for…

When planning and evaluating programs and policies in local and regional innovation economies, a key measure is the amount of private business research and development (R&D) activity taking place, typically found in the Business Enterprise Research & Development Survey (BERD). The Census Bureau, in cooperation with the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), is seeking public comment on planned updates to the BERD survey. BERD is instrumental in the federal government’s duties to calculate national gross domestic product, setting policy at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, and also informs researchers from academia, industry, and the nonprofit sector. As required by law, the Census Bureau has released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking information from the public on the proposed changes and structure to BERD for the 2021-2023 cycle. Specifically, the Census Bureau will use information from the RFI to: Evaluate whether the proposed information collection is necessary, including whether the information will have practical utility; Evaluate the accuracy of the time estimate…

Recession can drive increases in entrepreneurship as laid off workers look for other opportunities and start their own businesses. Increases in business startup activity throughout the 2020 recession were greater than any time in the 15 years prior. This edition of Useful Stats examines data from the Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics (BFS) series covering business initiation activity as indicated by applications for an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Specifically, this analysis examines high-propensity business applications (HBA*) per 1,000 residents per state — business applications that are associated with a high rate of business formation — for the 15-year period from 2006 to 2020. Nationally in 2020, there were 4.6 HBA per 1,000 residents. As seen in the interactive image below, the states with the greatest number of HBA per 1,000 state residents in 2020 were Wyoming (12.2); Delaware (10.7); Florida (8.6); Georgia (7.6); and the District of Columbia (5.9). The states with the fewest number of high-propensity business applications per 1,000 state residents in 2020 were New Mexico (2.7); Kentucky (2.6); New Hampshire (2.6); Iowa (2.5); and West…

Forthcoming research suggests venture development organizations, that is, those publicly-supported nonprofits that combine risk financing with expert technical assistance to grow local innovation-based startups, should give careful consideration to the exit histories of the venture capitalists they partner with to move the VDO’s portfolio firms through seed and series A investment rounds. Who those VCs know and have worked with to achieve successful exits previously through acquisitions or IPOs, in many cases, may be more important than the VC firms’ zip codes or assets under management. The path to a successful exit for each high-growth startup will vary; for example, exiting from the startup phase may take many forms, including staying an independent private company, becoming a publicly traded business through an IPO, or being acquired by a larger firm. The last two paths in that list are the most common for equity-financed innovation startups, with acquisitions being the much more prevalent of the two.  A new working paper by Maryann Feldman, et al. would indicate part of the VDO’s due diligence process when seeking VC investment partners for first and…