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While many universities maintain startup investment funds targeted at growing university-affiliated startups, several universities are looking beyond their walls for investment opportunities that will create a return on investment (ROI), but also support economic prosperity. Through these investment funds, universities are able to make strategic investment in startups that will contribute to the future growth of their community, region and state. Massachusetts provides a recent example where MIT will invest $25 million in local startups.

America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) have released Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing (Version 1.0) to help coordinate and accelerate the development of industry-wide additive manufacturing standards and specifications. In the roadmap, the authors highlight 89 gaps – 19 of which are high priority – where no published standard or specif

In response to a request for information, SSTI submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s CDFI Fund about the certification process and standards for community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Just 1.4 percent of all CDFIs and 0.2 percent of total assets are registered by the CDFI Fund as “venture capital,” which is concerning given the importance of equity for many startups.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced dates for this year’s SBIR Road Tour, a national outreach effort to highlight funding opportunities through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Combined, these two programs invest more than $2.5 billion annually as a way to spur innovation. At each of the road tour’s 16 stops, innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and small technology firms will have the opportunity to meet directly with SBIR and STTR program managers at the state and federal levels to discuss the program. The tour begins in May 2017 and will continue through October.

The Trump Administration’s skinny budget proposal released today calls itself, “A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again.” From the information contained in the document, it is clear the Administration does not view science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and the economic development efforts built around those activities as the path forward to making “America great again.” The program eliminations and drastic cuts are not the way to move the country forward economically. So what is behind this proposal? Two things: 1) a fight over the proper role of the federal government in the economy, and 2) a negotiating tactic to attempt to lull advocates into thinking program survival or lesser cuts are a victory. A full community response is needed and all of us must get off the sidelines and on to the playing field.

Proposed state budgets in Louisiana, Massachusetts and North Carolina show support for innovation and higher education, with some states better positioned in their levels of support while some programs are experiencing cuts. North Carolina unveiled new programs supporting a variety of tech-based economic development initiatives, while Louisiana is restoring full funding for its state scholarships for residents despite its budget deficit.

Educational initiatives continue to dominate in state of the state, budget and inaugural addresses, with governors in North Carolina, New Hampshire and Oregon all acknowledging its importance in the workforce development sphere and the future competitiveness of the states.

Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) funding is showing signs of a positive return on investment, according to recently published results by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA). RIS, an initiative within EDA’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (OIE), supports innovation-based and cluster-focused activities that seek to spur job creation and economic growth. In just two years, RIS awardees have leveraged $1.30 for every federal dollar requested and created nearly 1,000 jobs, according to the EDA.

As new and supplemental state budgets are being proposed, SSTI is monitoring the proposals and will report on developments impacting prosperity through science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. The first budgets released – from Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon and Wyoming – represent a mixed bag with new initiatives proposed in three states and program elimination in the fourth.

The last of the state of the state addresses are trickling in, with Florida’s governor this week making the case for the state’s economic development organization and business incentives, which the Florida House of Representatives have targeted for elimination. Last month Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin called for education reform and highlighted the competition for state funds in workforce development. Ohio and Louisiana’s governors are scheduled to deliver their remarks in April.

The SSTI Excellence in TBED awards program is back! SSTI wants to provide you with a national platform to share your organization’s success stories and be recognized during this year’s 2017 Annual Conference as a leader in the economic development field. Tell your story by submitting an application in one of this year’s awards categories.

Join us in Washington, DC on Sept. 13-15 for SSTI’s 2017 Annual Conference. During each conference, the leading policymakers and practitioners of regional innovation economies come together to discuss critical opportunities and common challenges. Washington, DC provides an opportunity not only to meet with these peers, but also to showcase the impact of science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship for federal officials and legislators. Learn more about the conference, register at early bird rates and reserve your room at ssticonference.org.

This week we take a look at the Trump administration's proposed $54 billion increase in defense spending, NDD United's letter to Congress (which SSTI signed), and testimony in favor of TBED funding.

The Senate confirmed Wilbur Ross as Commerce secretary Monday night by a vote of 72 to 27 and he was sworn into office by Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday. The 79-year-old billionaire investor becomes the 39th head of the office, which oversees several key economic development organizations including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Economic Development Administration, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the Economic and Statistics Administration. In his address to commerce department employees on Wednesday, Ross said the president has given the department “more responsibility than ever before.” In addition to being more involved with “rebalancing a trade system that has gutted American manufacturing,” Ross said that Commerce will “play a key role in his historic effort to relieve the crushing burden of regulation that has shifted American economic growth overseas and made us uncompetitive on the world stage.”

Last month, SSTI highlighted a recent research paper on the debate regarding university-industry collaboration’s impact on the academic ideal of open sciences and reduced academic productivity. In a new working paper from National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), MIT researcher Heidi Williams examines another controversial Intellectual Property (IP) topic – whether patent systems, in practice, improve the alignment between private returns and social contributions.

Private funders invested more than $2.3 billion in basic research at 34 universities and eight research institutions in 2016, with more than 84 percent of funds going to research in the life sciences, according to the Survey of Private Funding for Basic Research.

The nation’s largest system of higher education with over 2 million students is trying to connect community colleges to their regional economies through a three-year, $17-million-dollar investment to establish a statewide network of maker-focused colleges. The California Community College (CCC) Maker Initiative may provide a model for community colleges to infuse making, innovation, and entrepreneurship into students’ college experiences while helping them prepare for STEM/STEAM careers with the necessary skills for 21st Century jobs.

The perils of regional economies being too dependent on single industry clusters, particularly as it affects the financing of state governments, are playing out in the Great Plains. Kansas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming have been or still are experiencing recessions, beginning as early as spring 2015 for two, according to a new analysis by Jason P. Brown for the Tenth Federal Reserve District.

After training nearly 80 PhD scientists and engineers in the craft of policy making, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) has awarded planning grants to nine other states to evaluate the potential to create a policy fellowship for scientists and engineers in their state capital. The new one-year grant, which is administered by CCST and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Simons Foundation, will support teams in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington as they work on feasibility studies and other strategic steps toward creating science fellowships in their state policy arenas.

As the Great Recession wanes, an increasing amount of research has been conducted to assess its impact on entrepreneurship in the United States. Authors with the Kauffman Foundation found that firm formation in the United States is remarkably constant over time, although the death rate of companies rises during recessions.

The Senate passed the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act, directing the National Science Foundation (NSF) to recruit women into entrepreneurial programs, and the INSPIRE Women Act, directing NASA to expand its outreach to women, on February 14. Both bills previously passed the House and now head to the White House for signature.

The Senate advanced Wilbur Ross’s nomination for Secretary of Commerce with a vote in favor of ending debate; the full vote on confirmation is expected for February 27.

Arkansas has new tools targeting growth in the state’s innovation and technology sector after Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation creating a $2 million accelerator grant program for startups and establishing a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) matching funds program. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s (AEDC) Division of Science and Technology will administer the programs and seek corporate sponsors to provide matching funds to create accelerator events throughout the state.

SSTI submitted a letter to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in response to a request for information on the Institute’s investments in early translational research. The letter recommends partnerships and initiatives NHLBI could develop to improve identification of commercializable discoveries, strengthen business and technical development, and facilitate the scaling of innovations and spin-outs. These suggestions are grounded in examples of work by SSTI members. Read the full letter on ssti.org.

Science and engineering advocates are increasingly finding ways to voice their dedication to ensuring that the fields remain open and free of politics. Hundreds of supporters gathered this past weekend at a Rally to Stand Up for Science in Copley Square in Boston, coinciding with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

U.S. intellectual property (IP)-intensive industries employ at least 27.9 million workers and contributed more than $6.6 trillion dollars (38.2 percent) to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014, according to Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: 2016 Update. In this update to a 2012 report, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) identified 81 industries (from among 313 total) as IP-intensive including trademark-intensive, copyright-intensive, and patent-intensive industries.