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Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto announced the launch of the Pittsburgh Roadmap for Inclusive Innovation, a strategic plan that is intended to support economic growth and the equitable access to technology, city resources, and information. The roadmap includes three primary goals that include:

The STEM Funders Network (SFN) announced that 27 communities will pilot the national science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) Ecosystems Initiative. Launched at the Clinton Global Initiative, the program is intended to nurture and scale effective preK-16 instruction best practices in STEM learning.

Since the establishment of the Tennessee Promise in 2014, the first statewide free community college effort, community college systems and states are outlining their own strategies to make a two-year education free for students in their region in attempt to create an educated, qualified workforce that addresses the needs of industry and promotes economic prosperity. While it may remain too early to judge the benefits and the costs of these programs – lawmakers and educational professionals remain divided on the issue. 

Five North Carolina communities have been selected to participate in InnovateNC, a two-year economic development initiative centered on sharing knowledge, tools and resources between partner regions. Asheville, Greensboro, Pembroke, Wilmington and the city and county of Wilson were chosen from the 18 applicant regions. The initiative is spearheaded by NC State University’s Institute for Emerging Issues with nine partners and supported by a grant from the Kenan Creative Collaboratory.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will commit up to $70 million in funding for the Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Smart Manufacturing to support R&D efforts to develop, demonstrate, and transition to industry advanced sensing, instrumentation, monitoring, control, and process optimization as well as modeling and simulation technologies for industrial automation. The Innovation Institute on Smart Manufacturing will be the third DOE-funded facility as part of President Obama’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) institutes.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez has released the state’s first comprehensive energy plan since 1991. Her administration characterizes the plan as an “all of the above” approach with an emphasis on improving infrastructure, creating new incentives and streamlining regulations. Though the plan does not feature support for energy technology R&D, it prioritizes reducing fresh water consumption and improving workforce training for energy jobs.

Last week, the Treasury Department released guidance recognizing foundations may make investments with a wider range of return and risk expectations so long as they are not jeopardizing or compromising their charitable missions.  Proponents for the change expect the guidance to open the doors to more mission-related investments (MRIs), impact investing and innovative finance approaches to dealing with the growing array of societal and environmental issues confronting the globe.

While most state legislative sessions ended over the summer, a number of states only recently approved spending for FY16. Governors in Alabama, North Carolina and New Hampshire have approved budgets in the past few weeks, each after months of tense negotiations. SSTI reviews budgets in each of these states for spending related to technology-based economic development. For past articles in this series, visit ssti.org/tags/state-budget.

While speaking in Detroit last week, Vice President Joe Biden announced the creation of an Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IAMCI)  location in Detroit, aimed at creating better composite materials for wind turbines, compressed gas storage, and in particular, the automotive industry. Funded by the U.S.

Economic conditions across the country continue to improve, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) latest release of gross state product (GSP) data. GSP is derived as the sum of the gross domestic product originating in all the industries in a state. The period between 2008 and 2009, where the U.S. GDP decreased by 2 percent, marked a transition for many states, where their gross state product either decreased from the year before or where their growth rate was subdued.

Seed stage valuations have risen steadily over the last five years to an all-time high of 3.95 million (Median), a 30% increase over 2014, according to the recently released 2015 Q2 ARI HALO Report from the Angel Resource Institute at Willamette University (ARI). The authors found that all U.S.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it is accepting applications for the first round of its Small Business Vouchers Pilot (SBV) program. Under the SBV program, the DOE will commit up to $20 million in technical and research assistance awards to help small businesses bring next-generation clean energy technologies. Companies may apply for and receive up to $300,000 in assistance from U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories nationwide.

University-based centers to support collaborative research with industry have been a mainstay of federal competitiveness policies for decades.  Government commitments of multiyear, multimillion dollar funding are thought to provide lab/institutional stability and industry confidence for engagement in longer-term joint research projects.

Action toward improving the availability and speed of broadband in rural areas is emerging as an early theme in 2019, continuing activity from 2018. Oregon, Washington and the USDA all announced new initiatives last month. In mid-December, the USDA announced the availability of $600 million in grants and loans to support improvement of broadband accessibility across rural America. Funding is split into three equal pools.

One of the best ways to measure the effectiveness of state programs intended to encourage the success of SBIR applications is the approval-rate of their submissions. Although this data has been historically unavailable across every federal agency, it is now accessible for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the second largest provider of SBIR/STTR awards, according to a 2018 Digest report. The NIH distributed $446.2 million in SBIR/STTR awards in 2017, with every state except North and South Dakota receiving an award. Although California and Massachusetts had the most successful SBIR/STTR applications in 2017, accounting for roughly one-third of the total when combined, neither state ranked among the top 10 in success rate. NIH SBIR/STTR applications in Oregon (29 percent success rate), Vermont (25 percent success rate), and Wisconsin (23 percent success rate) were the most likely to be approved over the ten-year period from 2008 to 2017. Each of these states, as well as many others with high success rates, offer assistance with proposals such as technical support programs and Phase 0 grants.

A significant majority of SBIR and STTR grants awarded to small businesses from the National Institutes of Health in any given year end up in just a handful of states.

Several academic papers have been released recently focused on topics of importance for influencing the design and delivery of national and regional innovation policies. In this week’s issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest, we’ve included brief summaries of the findings of four of them related to timely news topics – the relationship of trade and manufacturing employments, the likely longer term economic impact of the 2017 corporate tax cuts, ties between R&D and trade,  and  the relationship of patents to employee wages.

While Congress was unable to pass a budget before funding ran out, legislators did advance multiple innovation-related proposals. Here is a quick summary of what the lame duck session did (and did not do) for tech-based economic development.

New legislative activity during the lame duck session:

This fall, the IRS released proposed Opportunity Zone rules, which did not address several key questions for business investment. SSTI submitted comments for official consideration last week, requesting that rules clarify initial investment periods, interim returns and qualifying business activity locations. Several organizations echoed similar concerns, including the U.S. Conference of Mayors and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Every state government invested at least $1.0 million in research and development in FY 2017, according to recent data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Education Statistics. During the three-year period from FY 2015 to FY 2017, California ($551.8 million per year), New York ($403.2 million per year), and Texas ($244.9 million per year) state governments averaged the most R&D expenditures. In FY 2017, these three states accounted for 49.8 percent of the national total, up from 45.6 percent of the total invested by state governments in 2012.

An independent economic analysis of the Ben Franklin Technology Partners reveals its impact on Pennsylvania’s economy — boosting the overall economy by $4.1 billion between 2012 and 2016, helping to create 11,407 high-paying jobs and generating $385 million in tax receipts for the state. Because the jobs were created in industries that pay 52 percent higher than the average nonfarm salary in Pennsylvania, the impact on the state’s GSP was greater, according to the report.

States invested $1.1 billion into health-related R&D expenditures in FY 2017 according to the newest results from the annual survey of state government R&D, conducted by the National Science Foundation.  Increasing by 13 percent from the previous year, health-related R&D helped push overall state government spending on R&D up by 7 percent over the 2016 figures. State investments in energy-related R&D, on the other hand, dropped by 16.6 percent ($61 million) to a total of $307 million in FY 2017.

NIST released a draft paper in December making recommendations for improvements to federal technology transfer and commercialization policy. The agency’s ideas ranged from clarifying march-in rights to compelling agency participation in technology entrepreneurship development. Although NIST is one of the agencies affected by the shutdown, comments on the draft paper were due Jan. 9.

With 36 governors being sworn in following the November elections, 20 of those being new faces and 16 who were re-elected, this year’s inaugural and state of the state addresses promise new ideas along with proposed resolutions to existing challenges. As the governors present their plans to constituents, SSTI revisits our Tech Talkin’ Govs series.

Jason Owen-Smith, executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS) at the University of Michigan and a researcher with work covered previously by SSTI, has written a book explaining the benefits of university R&D.