SSTI Digest

New one-year estimates from the American Community Survey (ACS) show that in 2019, women made up 48 percent of all workers but only 27 percent of STEM employees. This figure has risen over the last 50 years where, in 1970, women accounted for just 8 percent of STEM employees while representing 38 percent of all workers. While the disparity between the number of women in STEM and the number of women in the workforce has shrunk, they remain underrepresented in STEM careers. Women have made positive gains across all STEM occupations and now make up 47 percent of workers in math occupations, 45 percent in life and physical science occupations, and 64 percent in social science occupations. However, women did not make significant gains in computer and engineering occupations which accounts for roughly 80 percent of all STEM jobs. There also remains a gender pay gap in which women earned more than men in just one of the 70 STEM occupations identified by the Census Bureau. Groups such as the American Association of University Women (AAUW) have advocated for gender equity and shown how women earn markedly less in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid STEM jobs of the…

Industry investment in research and development (R&D) indicates, literally, how invested each state’s businesses are in creating new products and processes. To better-understand industry’s commitment to innovation, business R&D can be viewed as a percentage of each state’s private sector gross domestic product (GDP), providing a measure of research intensity. This measure highlights substantial differences in the orientation of states’ businesses toward research, with some states seeing an investment rate of less than 1 percent while others are above 5 percent. The metric further reveals a broad trend that businesses in many states have stagnated their investments in R&D relative to the overall performance of the economy. There was little change in the ranking of states that have experienced a higher percentage of industry R&D investment as a share of state GDP. The states that experienced a higher level of R&D spending as a portion of their GDP in 2009 have remained in the top percentages in 2018. States such as Michigan, California, and Massachusetts have had business R&D investment that has remained about 3 percent of the state’s private sector…

This week’s edition of Useful Stats examines the contributions to county-level GDP in 2019 by industry group. Specifically, this analysis identifies the industries that contributed the most to the economic output of each county in 2019, finding that the real estate and rental and leasing; manufacturing; and government and government enterprises industry groups were vital economic drivers in terms of both their contributions to national GDP as well as the number of counties where they were the top contributor. The analysis also shows that the finance and insurance industry group and the professional, scientific, and technical services industry group were each top contributors to national GDP but were the top industry in relatively few counties, while the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting industry group and the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry group were both ranked relatively low nationally but were top contributors to GDP in a significant number of counties. In 2019, the real estate and rental and leasing industry group was the greatest contributor to national GDP ($2.9 trillion); followed by government and government enterprises…

In honor of Black History month, the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) is hosting a free virtual celebration spotlighting the contributions of three contemporary Black women inventors. As a departure from past events that have paid homage to historic Black inventors, this years’ celebration will include firsthand accounts of the panelists’ current careers and inventions. The panel will include Dr. Aprille Ericsson, Dr. Ayanna Howard, and Dr. Arlyne Simon. Dr. Ericsson is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Howard University. In her current role at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), she works to develop government partnerships that bring together industry, small businesses, and universities to compete for opportunities to solve strategic R&D challenges faced by government agencies in the U.S. She is also the program manager for the GSFC Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. As an educator, researcher, and innovator, Dr. Howard has made contributions in the areas of artificial intelligence, computer vision, and robotics. She is a leader in novel technology research and has over 20 years of R&…

Across the country, the governors have begun delivering their State of the State addresses, an annual ritual where they have the opportunity to review where the state’s economy stands and preview their plans for the coming year. This year’s remarks reflect the dire conditions most states are experiencing with the pandemic, economic fallout, racial strife and national political upheaval. Despite the heavy focus on states’ efforts to respond to the pandemic, governors have struck a hopeful note and are focusing on recovery. Some governors have noted that the fallout in their state was not as severe as they originally anticipated and there are resources for new initiatives. Some, like Arizona and Virginia are considering gaming revenue to boost their budgets, while legalization of marijuana is being pursued in Connecticut, Kentucky (medical marijuana) and Virginia. Each year, SSTI reviews each of the governors’ addresses for news about initiatives affecting the innovation economy in our Tech Talkin’ Govs series, and this week we bring you the first round of those addresses looking at Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, New…

Ohio’s governor and other state leaders this week announced the creation of a new Cleveland Innovation District, with the state of Ohio, through the Ohio Development Services Agency (DSA), JobsOhio and the Cleveland Clinic committing a combined $565 million to the new district. The new district will bring together Northeast Ohio’s leading healthcare providers and education institutions with the goal of creating a pathogen center with global reach. DSA is committing to $155 million, $100 million will be in the form of a loan, the terms of which are still being finalized, and an estimated $55 million in Job Creation Tax Credits (JCTC) over a 15-year period. JobsOhio will invest $110 million and an additional $300 million will be invested by Cleveland Clinic.

A large majority (nearly 87 percent) of U.S. counties showed growth in their gross domestic product (GDP) from 2018 to 2019, according to an SSTI analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). GDP is the measure for the total value of goods and services produced in an area, and is one of the primary economic indicators used by researchers and policymakers. This edition of Useful Stats examines the recently updated (BEA) data and provides an analysis of 2019 total county GDP, 2019 county GDP per capita, and the percent change in each measure from 2018 to 2019.

Concluding its final phase of the Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS), the U.S. Census Bureau released findings comparing responses from early in the pandemic to those collected the first week in January. From early responses collected in April 2020 to those collected this winter, business expectations of a return to normal level of operations have shifted so that there are many businesses with expectations at opposite extremes: businesses with expectation of a short-term return to normal and those facing long-term challenges. In the most recent survey, 30.7 percent of respondents reported that their business had a large negative effect caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, and another 44.3 percent reported a moderate negative effect. More than half of the respondents also expect a longer timeframe before conditions return to normal than reported in the spring of 2020: 46.4 percent said more than six months, 7.1 percent do not believe their business will return to normal, and 1.8 said the business had permanently closed. The results also differed across economic sectors with a higher percentage of businesses in the construction, finance and insurance, real estate,…

A recent study exploring the science underlying all 356 pharmaceutical drugs approved by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research since 2010, found each drug is based on life science investments the public sector has made through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In addition, $230 billion, nearly 40 percent of the $586 billion the federal government has put into NIH over the past decade, can be tied to the development and success of those pharmaceuticals, contend the authors of Government as the First Investor in Biopharmaceutical Innovation: Evidence from New Drug Approvals 2010-2019. Not challenging the tremendously important role the federal government plays in life science R&D, the Bentley University researchers instead wonder if current technology transfer mechanisms enabled by the Bayh-Dole Act allow for an appropriate balance in capturing the financial returns from those investments. Through their research funded by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Bentley scholars Ekaterina Galkina Cleary, Matthew J Jackson and Fred Ledley, conclude the landscape of biopharmaceutical research funding has shifted in recent years towards an unbalanced risk/…

In the wake of the Great Recession, Congress enacted the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 to curb federal discretionary spending as the nation approached the statutory debt limit. Originally intended to reduce spending by nearly $2 trillion over the period from FY 2012 through FY 2021, the BCA spending caps were periodically raised by Congress. While these negotiations reduced the overall impact of the BCA, new analysis from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) estimates that more than $200 billion in federal R&D spending were nonetheless “lost” to these spending cuts, impacting several key elements of innovation economies — higher education R&D, private R&D investment, and STEM workforce development.

Last week, the incoming Biden administration announced an “American Rescue Plan” to address immediate health and economic threats from COVID-19. On the economic side, the plan goes further than immediate relief and begins to address some longer-term strength and resilience concerns. Among other provisions, it would provide $35 billion for a new business finance program that support venture capital, $350 billion for state and local governments to help address budget shortfalls, $35 billion for higher education and $3 billion for the Economic Development Administration. In total, the package has an estimated price of $1.9 trillion. Much of the cost is driven by economic relief to individuals and households, including $1,400 checks and expanded unemployment insurance benefits. Other assistance initiatives include funding for vaccination programs, expanded childcare and SNAP benefits, and $130 billion to help reopen schools. One of the plan’s most significant items for the tech-based economic development community is $35 billion for a program to help “successful” state, local, tribal and nonprofit small business financing programs leverage $175 billion in low-…

While venture capital (VC) deal activity by women-(co)founded and women-led companies has increased over the last 15 years by some metrics, a new report indicates that the 2020 pandemic and global recession impacted these companies more than companies founded and led by men. In the second edition of its annual All In Report, PitchBook expands on its efforts to shed light on the dynamics of women’s participation in the VC market. While participation in the VC market was impacted for companies founded and led by men and women in 2020, the report highlights the impact on women-founded and -led companies by showing recent declines in nearly every measure used in the report compared to nearly constant pre-pandemic trends in increased deal count, deal value, company valuation, and exit rates by women-founded and -led companies.