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The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) plan that would allow municipalities to build their own broadband network – superseding state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that explicitly prohibit such projects. The FCC claimed that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 granted it implicit power to preempt state laws that are intended to support open markets for private-sector utility companies.

Since the beginning of July, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) has announced almost $7.3 million in grants to support advanced manufacturing and support workforce development efforts in communities impacted by the decline coal industry. In Florida and Washington, the EDA announced funding to support the facilities that can house local manufacturing firms and provide the space and equipment necessary for them to create jobs.

On July 25, the Small Business Administration (SBA) released a framework that allows qualifying small and disadvantaged businesses to obtain developmental assistance from mentor companies (both large and small businesses) and form joint ventures with those mentors to pursue government contracts.

To help the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) prepares its next five-year research strategic plan, FTA invites stakeholders from across the country to participate in the crafting of the plan by providing ideas and other comments to establish a framework to guide how the federal entity prioritizes and invests in research activities over the next several years.

National business R&D intensity, as measured by business R&D expenditures as a share of gross product, increased by 6.6 percent from 2010 to 2013, according to SSTI’s analysis of recently released National Science Foundation (NSF) data. In total, business R&D intensity was nearly 1.9 percent in 2013, up from less than 1.8 percent in 2010. The states where business R&D expenditures were the largest share of gross state product were California, Massachusetts, and Delaware, while business R&D intensity grew the most from 2010 to 2013 in Washington, D.C., Maine, and Kentucky.

A recent National Institutes of Health-funded study by the National Academy of Sciences identifies how “science literacy” has been defined in research and the role this construct plays in attitudes about scientific research and funding. The 138-page report finds that science literacy has been measured many different ways but that the concept does not seem to directly affect attitudes toward science generally or in specific subjects.

U.S. companies continue to emphasize innovation, as private performance of R&D increased for the fourth consecutive year, according to recently released data from the National Science Foundation. In total, U.S. businesses performed 6.7 percent more R&D in 2013 than in 2012, according to the data, and nearly 19 percent more R&D from 2010 to 2013. Combined, the top 10 states performed approximately two-thirds (65.3 percent) of all private research and development in the United States, led by California, whose $89.4 billion in corporate R&D performance accounted for 27.7 percent of the national total.

The Department of Defense’s Army Contracting Command released a new federal funding opportunity (FFO) to establish and sustain a Robots in Manufacturing Environments Manufacturing Innovation Institute (RIME-MII) to increase U.S. competitiveness in robotics applied primarily in manufacturing environments. The intent of the new $80 million RIME-MII is to:

The European Union (EU) will commit €240 million (approximately 265 million USD) to create a nonprofit Research and Innovation Institute in Greece that will fund research and innovation to support the country’s efforts to pull it out of prolonged recession and create new high-paying jobs, according to the University World News.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Economic Council (NEC) published a call to action concerning the upcoming National Manufacturing Day (October 7, 2016) &n

On August 10, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed an extensive economic development bill (HB 4569) into law.

Over the last few weeks, Indiana and Michigan have announced the launch of manufacturing-focused innovation centers to help transform manufacturing sectors that are long-standing drivers of economic prosperity in their respective state into 21st century global hubs for manufacturing innovation. In partnership with key local industry partners, these centers are intended to help spur job creation while reimaging the role of manufacturing in their state through innovation.

Despite global headwinds, advanced industries expanded in the United States from 2013 to 2015, according to a recent report from the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Nearly two-thirds of this growth came from only seven sectors, led by tech services and automobile manufacturing, according to the report. Tennessee, Georgia, and Michigan saw advanced industry employment rise the most from 2013 to 2015.

Over the last several months, there has been a flurry of activity in government-supported efforts focused on addressing the skills gap faced by manufacturing firms and other key S&T industries. The intent of these programs is to develop industry-led partnership that align workforce development efforts with the needs of specific local industries to unlock a region’s economic prosperity.  In July, two new initiatives were announced that may help provide a data-driven guide for these efforts in the future.

For the 10th consecutive quarter, the venture capital (VC) industry invested $10 billion in a single quarter after investing $15.3 billion in Q2 2016, according to the MoneyTree™ Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

When the U.S. government made their R&D tax credit permanent in December 2015, it made a long-term commitment to using incentives to entice private firms to invest in research and development, joining many countries around the world. Although most studies find that R&D tax incentives promote R&D, there is little consensus on the extent of this effect. A recent firm-level analysis from the United Kingdom finds some of the strongest evidence to date on the effectiveness of R&D tax credits in incentivizing innovation. At the same time, however, other studies suggest other elements of a national economy such as education and infrastructure may be more important.

In an effort to advance entrepreneurship among their student bodies and grow their regional entrepreneurship ecosystems, six historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) will receive up to $24,000 in support services as part of a new program from the Delta Regional Authority. Funds from the HBCU Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Initiative will primarily be used for universities to work with partners to identify entrepreneurial resources within the regional system, categorize strengths and weaknesses, and to strategically build around opportunities. Additionally, the selected schools will each host a two-day technical assistance and rapid acceleration workshop that seeks to teach student entrepreneurs about the types of skills and resources needed to launch and scale businesses. Student entrepreneurs will then pitch their ideas for a chance to be selected to present at Founders Weekend, where finalists will receive mentorship with successful minority entrepreneurs, business model development, and other services.

A new report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers provides a broad overview of student loan-debt in the United States and yields some potentially surprising conclusions: while the $1.3 trillion in total student-loan debt in the U.S. may seem like a staggering amount, the authors of Investing in Higher Education: Benefits, Challenges, and the State of Student Loan Debt contend that this is helping, not hurting the nation’s economy. The authors posit that college is best viewed as an investment that typically yields a high return, even with the high upfront costs.

Sixty percent of students drop out or transfer from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, and more than 50 percent of students pursuing STEM in community colleges never graduate, according to new research from researchers at the University of Missouri (UM) and other partner institutions.

A recently released report finds evidence that Canada’s tech sector – when properly defined – plays an important role in the nation’s economy. In The State of Canada’s Tech Sector, authors Creig Lamb and Matthew Seddon develop a definition of the tech sector based on those industries employing an oversized share of technology occupations. Ultimately, they suggest that the sector is responsible for $117 billion (88.9 billion USD) in economic output, roughly on par with finance and insurance and construction as a percent of total GDP (7.1 percent).

Two recently released indices assess countries and cities on the characteristics that enable female entrepreneurship. The 2015 Female Entrepreneurship Index finds the U.S., Australia, the U.K., Denmark and the Netherlands offer the world’s most attractive environments for high-potential female entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, the Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities Index ranks New York City, California’s Bay Area, London, Stockholm and Singapore as the top cities for female entrepreneurship.

A month after a federal court ruled that high-speed Internet service can be defined as a utility, four states have announced commitments to expand high quality, reliable broadband services to rural areas and other underrepresented groups. Two Midwest states, Wisconsin and Minnesota, will provide funding to help support projects that improve access to broadband and spur economic prosperity.

Attracting and retaining talented workers is a critical element in a technology-based economy.  In the U.S., a major source of this talent comes from international students, many of whom stay in the United States to work after graduation – especially in STEM industries. New research from economists at the University of California at Santa Barbara examines why international students may choose to study in the U.S., as well as what compels them to either remain in the country or go elsewhere after earning their degrees.

A recently released analysis of mayoral State of the City addresses finds that economic development was the most frequently mentioned topic in such speeches for the third straight year. The National League of Cities’ (NLC) State of the Cities 2016 report reviews speeches from 100 mayors across the United States and in cities with populations ranging from 50,000 to more than 300,000. Economic development was mentioned in 75 percent of mayoral speeches, making it the biggest issue on mayors’ agenda – ahead of public safety (70 percent) and city budgeting (52 percent) – according to a NLC press release.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), announced the winners of the Community College Innovation Challenge – a competition that challenged teams of community college students to propose innovative science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-based solutions to real-world problems. A team from Forsyth Technical Community College in North Carolina placed first in the challenge with its Energy Efficient Nanotech Solar Greenhouse idea.