New Mexico’s 2008 legislative session wrapped up last week, resulting in no final action on several TBED-related bills and leading Gov. Bill Richardson to call a special legislative session to address his health care reform agenda.
Research-based companies draw much of their advantage in the market from their investment in technology development and the knowledge capital they have accumulated over time. Since this knowledge represents potential revenue, many companies jealously guard their intellectual property (IP) with non-compete clauses and other legal contracts with their employees. No company, however, can completely stop the outward flow of information.
A consistent claim in many competitiveness reports and economic development strategies is the need to increase the number of scientists and engineers in a given geographic area. But are there other factors, when coupled with the presence of scientists and engineers, that influence local long-term employment growth more than others?
Using its Occupational Employment Statistics Survey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the number of employees in about 800 separate occupations for every metropolitan area in the U.S. In the most recent version of its Science and Engineering Indicators series, the National Science Board compiled a chart organizing the number of employees in S&E occupations in 2006, the most recent data available.
Former Lansing Community College president Paula Cunningham is the new director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth.
Dan Curran is the new director of the Business Development Division of the Nebraska Department of Development.
Ted Ford, former president and CEO of the Edison Welding Institute, recently was named president and CEO of TECHColumbus.
Sandy Johnson, interim CEO of the Mid-American Manufacturing Technology Center, was appointed to the position on a permanent basis.
Roger Kilmer was appointed director of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Kilmer served as acting director since Kevin Carr's departure last June.
Sean O'Kane, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development, is resigning from the position at the end of his two-year term in March to return to the private sector.
BioFlorida President Diana Robinson is leaving to join a private venture capital company once her replacement is selected.
Tim Rubald, interim executive director of the Nevada Commission on Economic Development, was appointed to the position on a permanent basis.
Harvard University President Lawrence Summers announced his resignation this afternoon. Former Harvard president Derek Bok is to serve as interim president for the university.
The Carolina Center for Competitive Economies (C3E) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, invites applications for the position of Associate Director for Research.
Temi Bova is the new director of Union College's U-start technology business incubator in Schenectady, N.Y.
The Ben Franklin Technology PArtners of Central and Northern Pennsylvania promoted Stephen Brawley to serve as president and CEO.
Temi Bova is the new director of Union College's U-start technology business incubator in Schenectady, N.Y.
The Ben Franklin Technology PArtners of Central and Northern Pennsylvania promoted Stephen Brawley to serve as president and CEO.
Alan Brown was named executive director of the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center, a newly formed economic development initiative.
The Wright Center of Innovation for Advanced Data Management and Analysis changed its name to daytaOhio and named Paul Cashen as its new president.
With a $50 million appropriation in FY 2000, the State of Michigan has made the first installment toward spending $1 billion over the next 20 years for life sciences research, development, and commercialization. The funding is derived from Michigan's tobacco settlement. Other public and private sources are expected to match much of the state's investment over the two decades.
Over the last year, there has been increased public and government attention on issues involving tech-based economic development. For much of the year, Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat has dominated the New York Times bestseller list. A series of reports from the AeA, Council on Competitiveness, and the National Academy of Sciences call for increased action by the federal government.
During his 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush outlined a decade-long $50 billion American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) for R&D, education and entrepreneurship. The FY 2007 downpayment on ACI is $5.9 billion, which is accomplished by shuffling priorities within a shrinking federal discretionary budget environment to find $1.3 billion in new funding and $4.6 billion in R&D tax incentives. Specifically, ACI calls for:
Perennially a favorite target for Congressional earmarks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) budget, at $92.8 billion, is nearly $3 billion below the FY 2006 level of anticipated expenditures. More than three-fourths of the USDA budget outlays for FY 2007 are dedicated to mandatory spending programs such as nutrition assistance, conservation, export promotion and farm commodity programs. The remaining balance of $21.5 billion, $1.7 billion or 7.3 percent less than the FY06 outlay level, is for discretionary programs.
The Administration's FY 2007 $6.138 billion discretionary budget request for the Department of Commerce reflects a 4.23 percent decrease from the FY06 appropriation of $6.410 billion.
The Administration's FY07 budget request for the Department of Defense (DoD) totals $439.3 billion, an increase of 7 percent from FY 2006. However, funding for DoD science and technology decreased 15.9 percent, to a total of $11.1 billion for FY07.