Search

As part of Next Century Cities, a new bipartisan, city-to-city initiative, 32 cities and their elected leaders from across the United States are uniting to recognize the importance of leveraging gigabit-level Internet for economic development. The initiative enables participating cities to work together to learn about best practices in engaging and assisting communities in developing and deploying next-generation broadband Internet so that every community has the resources needed to succeed.

Australian Minster Tony Abbott announced a $400 million AUD (approximately $352M USD) national Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda focused on building the country’s innovation economy, supporting apprenticeship and workforce programs that address the needs of industry, and promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.  The centerpiece of the agenda is a $188 million AUD (approximately $165.5M USD) initiative to create industry growth cente

Earlier this summer, President Obama announced that his administration would be taking executive action to reform immigration policy, working to improve the entirety of the immigration system by tweaking individual components. This week, at a startup incubator in Los Angeles, the President revealed at least one of those components: the H1B system.

James A. Anderson, the founder and CEO of Detroit-based retail consulting firm Urban Science, and his wife donated $25 million last week to support the entrepreneurial efforts of Wayne State University’s engineering and computer science faculty and students.

Over the past decade, two ideas have become more and more popular among innovation and economic development leaders. First, that maximizing collaboration between institutions, interest groups, stakeholders and communities is pivotal in building an innovation ecosystem that can succeed and grow over time. Second, that proximity matters, and by focusing on innovation networks at the regional or metro scale, rather than at the national or state level, initiatives can have a real, measurable economic impact. Though they seem complementary, these ideas are frequently in tension.

In Q3 2014, venture capital (VC) investments in the U.S. dropped by 30 percent from Q2 totals, according a new report from CB Insights. Q3 VC deal levels also dropped by 10 percent from Q2 totals. The severe drop, however, can be attributed to Q2 being the most successful VC quarter since Q1 2001. The good news is that the first three quarters of 2014 saw the U.S. VC investment total reach $33.75 billion – an increase of 59 percent compared to the first nine months of last year.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a coalition of Chicago organizations and private businesses have announced plans to place at least 1,000 workers in manufacturing jobs. The mayor’s 2015 budget proposal, presented this week, includes $200,000 for the effort, with another $750,000 in funds and in-kind contributions from partners. Recent growth in the region’s manufacturing sector has created an urgent need for workers with specific training and apprenticeships, according to the mayor’s announcement.

North Carolina’s new Economic Development Partnership began operations this week. The public-private partnership will assume many of the economic development operations of the state’s Department of Commerce (as described in an earlier Digest article), with most of its 34 staff members previously working for the department, according to the News & Observer.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has released the names of the 27 individuals who will serve as the initial members of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). NACIE, which will begin work in December, will advise the secretary of Commerce on transformational policies to help communities, businesses and the American workforce become more globally competitive. Subcommittees will explore the council’s three main focus areas: entrepreneurship, innovation and job-driven skills training.

If a concentration of highly skilled workers is an important leading indicator to more widespread economic growth, which regions are leading the way? Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to compare the educational attainment rates of the nation’s largest labor forces from 2005 to 2013, authors from the Cleveland State University Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs determine where America’s highest-skilled jobs are clustering.

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) SBIR program is meeting three of its four legislative/mission-related goals, according to new study from the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies – SBIR at the Department of Defense. Those four congressional objectives of the DOD SBIR program are to:

In celebration of National Manufacturing Day, the Obama Administration announced it will release a new competition to award more than $100 million to launch a new Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (IMI) focused on Integrated Photonics. The proposed Integrated Photonics Institute will assist in developing an end-to-end photonics ‘ecosystem’ in the U.S. and support research and development efforts across the country on domestic foundry access, integrated design tools, automated packaging, assembly and test, and workforce development in the research area related to photonics.

Each year, the first Friday in October marks Manufacturing Day, a quasi-holiday where manufacturers nationwide open their doors to host open houses, tours, workshops, and other events to educate the public on the current state of American manufacturing. Although the phrase “American manufacturing” may conjure up images of oversized equipment or Rust Belt decay, the industry is, by many accounts, thriving. One of the highlights of this year’s Manufacturing Day was Jay Williams, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development’s announcement of a nearly $1.9 million EDA grant to Wichita State University in South Kansas to support advanced manufacturing, fueling the creation of 500 jobs and providing competitive advantage to the region’s transportation equipment manufacturing industry.

On September 28, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 850 into law, which establishes a pilot-program that will allow 15 of the state’s community colleges to launch low-cost bachelor’s degree programs in vocational fields of high demand by state industries.

Although black women may show more interest in STEM majors than white women as they enter college, they are less likely to earn a degree in those fields according to new research in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced four new Regional Innovation Clusters that will be included among its portfolio of high-performing regional networks. Awardee clusters will receive $500,000-$550,000 for mentoring, counseling, pitch development and other small business support programs. The new members of SBA’s cluster portfolio include Milwaukee’s Water Technology Cluster, Southeastern New Mexico’s Autonomous and Unmanned Systems Cluster, a Retail, Supply Chain and Food Processing Cluster spanning the Ozarks region and a Marine Industries Cluster in several Gulf Coast states.

After decades of seeing their suburbs thrive while their cores decayed, cities across the United States  are receiving a long overdue influx of talent and capital in what Alan Ehrenhalt describes as the “great inversion.” While a large proportion of wealth and population in many regions still lives in the suburbs, trends are shifting, and it’s not just anecdotal.

New partnerships are needed between the IT community, government and institutions of higher learning to help bridge the American skills gap, according to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). In a letter to the president, PCAST notes that online solutions could provide people without secondary degrees with the training needed to fill high-demand IT jobs.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced its first round of investments totaling $46 million under the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. The $46 million will support more than 100 investigator-led research projects in 15 states and several countries to support the development of new tools and technologies to understand neural circuit function and capture a dynamic view of the brain in action.

As American spending on research relative to GDP dwindles, the system that generated America’s economic prosperity over the past century has begun to fall apart, according to a new report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy calls the disintegration of the country’s national innovation system the key threat to American prosperity.

Federal funding for basic research performed at universities and colleges decreased 0.3% between FY11 and FY12, according to a new National Science Foundation (NSF) Infobrief. In FY12, basic research at universities and colleges accounted for 11.4% of total R&D obligations, and is estimated to increase to 11.8 percent of total R&D obligations in FY13, and to 12.5 percent in FY14.

Building stronger connections between universities and businesses in key industries could help generate new jobs, startups and technologies, according to an S&T roadmap released by the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC). ISTC notes that the division between the state’s research universities and companies has limited Illinois’ competitiveness, despite its high overall level of innovative activity.

“People ages 20 to 34 created 22.7 percent of all new companies in last year [2013], down from 34.8 percent in 1996,” according to an article from Walter Hamilton of the LA Times. In the article, Hamilton contends that the “image of the U.S.