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 U.S. ranks second on a global manufacturing competitiveness index, according to the 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index by research firm Deloitte Global and the Council on Competitiveness. The U.S. ranking has improved in each of the past studies and is poised to take over that top spot from China by 2020, the study maintains. However, executives from across the world in responding to the study, noted that talent is the leading factor in determining manufacturing competitiveness, and finding and cultivating that talent is a topic that has received increasing attention from the manufacturing sector. While such rankings provide an interesting focal point, their real value lies in the discussion and attention focused on the subject matter. SSTI recently interviewed several leading thinkers on the subject, finding common calls for changing the approach to the talent pipeline in manufacturing, as well as a cautionary note on rankings.

In last week’s Digest article – Alternatives to VC: Reconsidering the Startup Financing Paradigm – SSTI examined the conventional venture capital (VC) model as well as its advantages and limitations. In this installment, we will highlight alternatives such as revenue-based financing, venture debt, crowdfunding and a new financing model for cleantech proposed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers. We also take a look at the potential that these alternatives have for the field of tech-based economic development.

Nearly half of the U.S. states and the District of Columbia saw a 10 percent or greater increase in higher education R&D expenditures from FY 2010 to FY 2015 with five of those states (Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Utah) seeing at least a 20 percent change, according to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey for 2015. Between FY10-15 overall U.S. research and development (R&D) spending at U.S.

The 21st Century Cures Act was signed by President Obama on Tuesday and is broadly intended to facilitate the research, development and transfer of medical discoveries in order to better-address diseases affecting American people. While the bill has received mainstream coverage for its bipartisanship – the core authors were two Democrats and two Republicans – and billions in new research spending – more than $5 billion in authorizations – the text also contains potentially significant changes for federally-supported medical research policy.

Despite the economic recovery since the Great Recession, the U.S. remains in a long-term decline in productivity, according to a pro bono study by Gallup commissioned by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness for the council’s 30th anniversary. The study, No Recovery An Analysis of Long-Term U.S. Productivity Decline, finds that since 2007, U.S. GDP per capita growth has been one percent, and Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton warns that “America is dangerously running on empty.”

To ensure economic growth and the success of the industries of tomorrow, the U.S. government needs to expand federal support for research and improve the efficiency of the process of federally funded knowledge leading to U.S. innovation and jobs, according to a recently released study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Brookings Institution’s Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking. In Localizing the economic impact of research and development: Policy proposals for the Trump administration and Congress, ITIF and Brookings suggest 50 policy proposals that the new administration and Congress can undertake to bolster tech transfer, commercialization, and innovation.

Megatrends like ageing societies and digitization are expected to shape future research and development agendas across the globe, according to a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A broader distribution of science, technology and innovation are expected around the world due to the fast pace of economic development in emerging economies, and global competition for talent and resources will most likely intensify according to the OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2016. Such megatrends, and others highlighted in the report, require policy responses that will likely face major constraints, including high public debt, international security threats, a possible erosion of social cohesion and the rise of influential non-state actors, the report maintains.

Congress approved the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2017, which now awaits the President’s signature. The bill includes several significant provisions for the innovation community, including:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a new initiative this week to grow the life science research cluster throughout the state, pledging $550 million through a variety of programs including tax incentives, state capital grants, and investment capital with an expected match of $100 million from private sector partnerships for operating support.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is requesting feedback on a 2017 funding opportunity that will allow the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Centers and their partners to add capabilities to the MEP program, including projects to solve new or emerging manufacturing problems. Small and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers are encouraged to send information about their needs in four areas: critical manufacturing technologies; supply chain; potential business services, including information services; and other technologies or services that would enhance global competition. NIST also requests recommendations for other critical issues that it should consider in strategic planning for future investments. More information can be found here. Responses will be accepted through Jan. 13, 2017.

Last week, Congress passed the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (S. 3084), which reauthorizes the America COMPETES Act. The Act does not include any funding levels for any of the programs or agencies reauthorized in the bill but does reinforce Congress’s support for research and makes adjustments to some programs. One crucial component of the bill adjusts the cost share requirement for NIST’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership to 1:1 throughout the new authorization period.

The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) becomes the eleventh institute in the Manufacturing USA network, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced last week. The $70 million award marks the first institute with a focus area proposed by industry and the first funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC).

This week, we take a look at the top SSTI Weekly Digest stories from 2016 and give you an idea of what to look for in the coming months.

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.

Startup failure is the rule, not the exception. However, much startup ”failure” includes businesses that made a workable product and grew — just not fast enough to attract venture capital. A hybrid venture capital-private equity approach is trying to identify these slower-growing businesses as part of an investment model that may provide an exit strategy for spurned startups throughout the country.

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.

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.

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.

In the last five years, federal agencies have undertaken 116 price competitions and challenges that have helped the agencies “spur innovation, engage citizen solvers, address tough problems, and advance their core missions” as well as provide a cost savings for the agencies, according to a new report the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released

As policymakers and economic developers grow to recognize the need to create broader opportunities for prosperity to sustain future national competitiveness, four facts reveal one of the complex and compounding factors hampering productive participation from a significant segment of our population:  

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is entertaining proposals to support “academe-industry partnerships, which are led by an interdisciplinary academic research team collaborating with at least one industry partner in order to carry out research to advance, adapt, and integrate technology(ies) into a specified, human-centered smart service system.” Through the Building Innovation Capacity (BIC) element of the Partnerships for Innovation program, NSF intends to make up to $10 million in grants to support research partnerships working on projects that operate in the post-fundame

The big data technology and services market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 23.1 percent over the 2014-2019 forecast period, with annual spending projected to reach$48.6 billion in 2019, according to a 2015 study from IDC – a market research firm. Hoping to leverage this exponential growth into research and economic development opportunity, several universities are fund raising to establish new big data R&D Centers in the communities they serve.