Final Rule Issued for Federal Licensing Opportunities
58 Inventions Also Offered by Health, Navy
58 Inventions Also Offered by Health, Navy
Sixty-two organizations in 44 states and the District of Columbia will receive a total of $3.5 billion in tax credit allocations through the second competitive round of the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program, the Treasury Department recently announced. Several of the selected organizations have a national market perspective.
A new economic development council formed in South Carolina has been charged with two objectives: help reshape the state’s economy and raise its per-capita income. Members of the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness, a group of business, academia, government and economic development leaders, were announced earlier this month.
A new report from the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), A Toolkit for Evaluating Public R&D Investment, provides useful information to anyone interested in evaluating publicly-sponsored research and development (R&D) programs. While the report focuses on more than 40 evaluations that have been performed for ATP, it offers one of the most comprehensive and understandable overviews of evaluation methods and applying those approaches.
Community colleges can play an important part in shaping the workforce in the science and technology (S&T) sector. For example, with the growth in biotech, there is an increasing need for technicians in the biotech field and workers are finding that they can prepare for these jobs rather quickly in community colleges. Technicians in biotech manufacturing facilities generally have two-year specialized training or an associate degree from a technical or community college, according to the U.S.
The Department of Defense (DoD) distributed $152.9 million in awards under its fiscal year 2003 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program competitions. A total of 1,882 awards were selected from a pool of more than 15,000 proposals across all states and the District of Columbia.
With the establishment of a $1 million trust fund to serve as seed money, the new Oklahoma Institute of Technology intends to position the state as a national leader in information technology, engineering, and biotechnology. Governor Frank Keating signed Senate Bill 694 into law June 8, creating the public-private collaboration. Tulsa World news reports indicate supporters of the institute anticipate raising a $100 million endowment for the project and securing additional state support.
Editor’s Note: Results of the 2000 Census indicate that the U.S. population is aging. The median age, at 35.3 years, is the highest ever, and those 62 years and older total almost 10 percent more than they did in 1990. In every state except West Virginia, the census shows an increase of at least 20 percent in the 35 to 54 age group. Twenty-seven states saw a more than 30 percent increase in that age cohort.
SSTI has prepared a 50-state table presenting the 1990 and 2000 figures and percent change for selected age cohorts: 25-34, 35-54, and 55 & over. The table can be accessed on-line at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/061501t2.htm
Indiana
The Indiana legislature approved a $50 million appropriation over the next biennium for Indiana's 21st Century Research and Technology Fund. The program supports the development and commercialization of advanced technology. Created in 1999 (see related 9/10/99 Digest story), the fund received $50 million in the 2000-2001 biennium.
Cliff Numark is leaving his position as president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Technology Alliance to join a Los Angeles-based private consulting practice.
Cliff Numark is leaving his position as president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Technology Alliance to join a Los Angeles-based private consulting practice.
Governor Don Siegelman has named Norm Davis as the director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. Mr. Davis had been serving as the State Banking Superintendent. Jim Hayes, director of the Alabama Development Office, has announced his resignation.
Jim Pickens will be the permanent director of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development. Mr. Pickens has served as interim director since February 2.
Competition for state, federal and industrial funding to support university research is increasingly fierce in the U.S. Growing interest in developing academic research capacity, eroding state support for higher education and federal R&D budgets barely keeping pace with inflation, let alone absorbing the growing percentage dedicated to Congressional earmarks, are some of the reasons.
Washington State remains poised to capture more benefits from its technology-driven economy, according to the Index of Innovation and Technology released last month by the Washington Technology Center (WTC). As the state's lead organization to support science and technology, WTC publishes the Index to provide the state's decision makers with annual benchmarks for setting policy and public investments to promote technology-based economic development.
The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) recently held its 18th International Conference in Atlanta, honoring excellence in business incubation programs, graduates and client companies. NBIA, a nonprofit organization, works to advance incubation and entrepreneurship. This year’s recipients include:
Cleveland Fed: "Innovation, Growth, and Economic Policy in an Environment of Change,"
At a time when manufacturing jobs are relenting to the pressures of an expanded service sector, foreign competition and productivity growth, the idea of economic prosperity has a renewed urgency with innovation as the greatest strength and flexibility the greatest asset, argues a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
2004 S&E Indicators includes chapter of state-level metrics
The U.S. remains the world's leading producer and net exporter of high-technology products, ranking among the global leaders in research and development (R&D) spending. However, ongoing economic and workforce changes make the outlook for the future uncertain, according to Science and Engineering (S&E) Indicators 2004, a biennial report of the National Science Board (NSB) to the President.
Venture capital (VC) kept up a steady pace in the first three months of 2004, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/Thomson Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree™ Survey. Investments in the first quarter of 2004 totaled $4.6 billion going into 618 companies, the data show. The figure is below the $5.2 billion invested in the fourth quarter of 2003, but above the first quarter total of a year ago, $4.2 billion.
Amid criticism from taxpayers, legislators in Hawaii agreed to renew the widely debated bill that extends high-technology tax credit for another five years, without a provision requiring the disclosure of companies that receive the credits, the Honolulu Advertiser recently reported.
The Department of Commerce is accepting nominations for the 2005 National Medal of Technology awards, the nation’s highest honor awarded by the President to America's leading technological innovators.
More than $800 million for science, engineering, research, and commercialization activities
Collaborative partnerships between universities and industry, a long-standing element of many states’ tech-based economic development strategies, are not without significant issues that threaten to hamper their effectiveness and limit the promises of research, according to Working Together, Creating Knowledge: The University-Industry Research Collaboration Initiative.
The placement and retention of women in apprenticeships and positions in nontraditional occupations (A/NTO) has posed significant challenges in fields requiring high technology skills, including computer-based information technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, transportation, utilities, and general services.