SSTI Digest

The federal government has not developed strategic economic intelligence to understand the competitive position of its traded sectors, and the time is now for a more advanced technology strategy and that will require a better data collection system. That is one of the key takeaways of a recent report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). The report identifies three key areas with major statistical gaps and calls on Congress to fund modernization and expansion of federal statistical agency IT systems.

In the introduction to the report, Robert Atkinson, ITIF president, notes, “If the U.S. government is going to develop more effective policies to spur competitiveness, growth, and opportunity, it will need to support better data collection.”

Atkinson cites years of budget cuts to federal economic data agencies and a disregard of the need for sectoral and firm-level economic data to inform an industrial strategy as part of the challenge facing the country’s national statistical system. A better data system will also be necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of new technology and industry policies and programs, the report states.

The House Committee on Appropriations advanced its first FY 2022 funding bills this week. Included in the financial services bill was $10 million for each of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s three main innovation programs: Regional Innovation Clusters, Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST), and Growth Accelerators Fund Competition. The bill also includes language supporting a new White House Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Innovation to coordinate cross-agency policy and programs.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced over $30 million in federal funding, matched by over $35 million in private sector funds, for 68 projects that will accelerate the commercialization of promising energy technologies. The awards are expected to help transfer solutions from the National Labs to the marketplace and work toward the president’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The awards are being facilitated by the DOE Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). To receive a TCF award, National Lab teams must receive a commitment from private sector partners to match at least 50 percent of the anticipated federal funding. This year’s selected TCF projects come from 12 DOE National Labs, supported by partners in 25 states and four countries, including the following SSTI members:

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is soliciting nominations of qualified former and current small business owners, community leaders, officials from small business trade associations, and academic institutions to serve on the Council of Underserved Communities (CUC). The CUC is being restored to help support the SBA’s prioritization of equity across its programs and initiatives. SBA seeks candidates representing both urban and underserved communities.

The CUC was initially established in 2010 to focus on communities and populations that have traditionally faced barriers in accessing credit, capital other resources necessary to start and grow businesses. The CUC's mission is to collectively provide the SBA with input on how to improve and strengthen equity among women -, veteran-, and minority-owned businesses and/or businesses from low-to-moderate income or rural communities.

Understanding enrollment trends at the nation’s institutions of higher education — an important indicator of the knowledge capital and skilled workforce available to local innovation economies — is paramount in developing appropriate strategies to bolster local and regional innovation and entrepreneurship. While many institutional reports cover only one or a few years’ worth of enrollment data, evaluating long-run trends can help policymakers and program designers identify issues that might otherwise be hidden, enabling the development of more effective policies and programs.

This edition of Useful Stats builds on last week’s analysis of data for spring term enrollment at degree-granting institutions of higher education from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC). SSTI compiled data from several NSCRC reports to explore the 10-year trends in spring term enrollment per 1,000 residents by state from 2012 to 2021.

Helping to meet the challenge of fighting a global pandemic while growing high-quality jobs during an economic downturn, the life sciences industry showed its strength over the course of the past year. An update to the biennial Life Science Workforce Trends report from the Coalition of State Bioscience Institutes (CSBI) asserts that it is because of the industry’s skilled-talent base and sets out to assess the industry’s position and priorities in 2021, focusing on its demands for workforce and talent.

Calling 2020 perhaps the “ultimate test of the industry’s resilience,” the report found that the life science industry represents a steady economic growth driver despite the pandemic’s challenges, noting that the industry continued to hire and grow its employment base by 1.4 percent in 2020 while the overall private sector saw a 5.1 percent decline.

West Virginia has updated its Vision 2025: West Virginia Science & Technology Plan (S&T Plan), which identifies four areas (life sciences, computer and data science, advanced manufacturing, and advanced energy) representing significant and growing university-based research and educational activities that align with the state’s target industries and workforce development goals. 

The plan is updated every five years and this latest update aims to develop the state’s STEM talent pipeline, expand the research enterprise, catalyze more innovation and entrepreneurship activity, and support the growth of high-tech companies.

Regardless of the approach used, the goal of every economic development program in the country is to create economic opportunity within a specific geographic area. If more local, state and federal policy makers and practitioners were aware that empirical research has revealed certain types of companies were 235 percent better than others at maintaining long-term job “stickiness,” would we shift more resources and priorities in their direction?  Would knowing these same companies also were shown to be more profitable, had higher sales, and had greater survival rates than others help persuade skeptics? Should more companies with these business models be part of your region’s portfolio of innovation-based firms?

Enrollment in the nation’s institutions of higher education is an important indicator of the knowledge capital available to local innovation economies. This edition of Useful Stats explores enrollment data from the recently updated National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) report , Current Term Enrollment Estimates, covering spring term enrollment trends at degree-granting institutions of higher education. Specifically, this analysis examines enrollment per 1,000 residents by state*, the change in total enrollment over prior spring terms, as well as enrollment by type of institution by state from spring term 2019 to spring term 2021.

Enrollment per 1,000 residents

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced a new competition for awards to support industry-driven consortia in developing technology roadmaps that will address high-priority research challenges to grow the advanced manufacturing sector in the U.S. and is inviting applications to its Manufacturing USA Technology Roadmap (MfgTech) grants program.

Roadmaps should 1) address major technological barriers that inhibit the growth of advanced manufacturing in the U.S. that no single organization could tackle on its own; 2) identify and prioritize research projects supporting long-term industrial research needs; 3) create new and/or update broadly available industry-driven, shared-vision technology roadmaps to support strategic and long-range planning; and 4) catalyze development and support the maintenance of a technology infrastructure and excellence in advanced manufacturing, including identifying technology areas appropriate for potential new Manufacturing USA institutes.

The White House has released reviews from the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Defense, and Health and Human Services in response to the president’s Executive Order on “America’s Supply Chains.” Vulnerabilities in supply chains were assessed in four key product areas: semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging; large capacity batteries; critical mineral and materials; and, pharmaceuticals and advanced pharmaceutical ingredients. The report makes the case that more secure and resilient supply chains are essential to our national security and economic security, as well as technological leadership.

High-risk/high-reward research can yield breakthroughs, produce new technologies, and allow the surrounding region to remain economically relevant. However, the scientific community remains concerned that research and development-focused policies, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, continue to be conservative with their goals by only encouraging incremental growth that can yield tangible results in shorter amounts of time. These concerns, and potential policy solutions, are explored in a recently published research paper by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Effective Policies to Foster High Risk/High Reward Research, authored by an international group selected by the Global Science Forum, examines the current policy environment, notes the roadblocks to supporting high-risk/high-reward research, and investigates what can be done to provide long term support for high-risk/high-reward projects.