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Golden LEAF, the statewide foundation established in 1999 to use one-half of the state's tobacco settlement for the long-term economic advancement of North Carolina, has announced an $85.4 million economic stimulus package it believes will significantly improve North Carolina's economy and make the state a leader in the biosciences industry. Foundation officials anticipate the public investment stimulating at least $350 million in new private and federal funding biotech activity in the state.

Cities predict a stressful future for their budgets, which have been hurt by the economic downturn and the surge in local homeland security spending, according to the annual survey of city finance officers conducted by the National League of Cities (NLC).

Greater Philadelphia First (GPF) and the Science Center, a consortium of 34 regional academic and scientific institutions, have established a major new joint initiative designed to make it easier for science and technology entrepreneurs to start, grow and expand their businesses. Modeled on UCSD CONNECT in San Diego, CONNECT Greater Philadelphia will assist entrepreneurs by linking them with needed business, academic and other resources.

With heightened public interest in the state of the economy, the National Commission on Entrepreneurship (NCOE) has released Entrepreneurship: A Candidate’s Guide — Creating Good Jobs in Your Community, a first-of-its-kind publication on how policymakers can help stimulate the creation and growth of new businesses in their local areas.

Whether it's oil, gas, mining, lumber, fishing or farming, economies dominated by natural resource exploitation are subject to periods of boom and bust. In order for the four provinces of Canada's Atlantic region to shield themselves from such market swings and scarcity problems, it is necessary to build R&D partnerships and to collaborate more than ever, concludes a report released by Dr. Alan Cornford of GPT Management Ltd., Marin Consultants, Inc. and Gardner Pinfold Consultants Ltd.

Most technology-based economic development programs recognize the need to have more people in their states or communities who have received bachelor degrees or higher. Bringing low-income populations into a knowledge-based economy is particularly difficult because of the two significant obstacles low-income students face for college access: insufficient financial aid and inadequate academic preparation.

The number of tech workers immigrating to the U.S. for jobs in the IT industry are down more than 50 percent compared to a year ago, according to figures released by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) this week. With hundreds of dot-com closures and tens of thousands of layoffs in the information and communication technology industries, the drop was expected by many analysts.

Recognizing the potential economic impact of biotech, nearly every state, most colleges and dozens of communities are developing programs to build bio-based economies. Everyone wants a piece of what may be the guiding field for industrial transformation over the next several decades. Is there enough bio for everyone? What strategies work for building bio-based economies? What approaches are states and localities taking, and what's working?

U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has called on the Senate’s top appropriators to help reverse budget elimination of two key programs designed to strengthen the technological competitiveness of small businesses.

A bi-partisan group of Senators have cosponsored the "New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act" to help renew the promise of the original Homestead Act to attract new residents and businesses to rural areas suffering from high out-migration. Introduced by Senator Bryon Dorgan (D-ND) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) this week, the bill provides incentive tools including a $3 billion venture capital fund.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has posted a preliminary list of the 10 U.S. universities receiving the most patents for inventions during calendar year 2002. The University of California tops the list for the ninth consecutive year. The table below also presents the school's 2001 ranking and total. 

Wrapping up its 2003 session earlier this month, the West Virginia State Legislature passed three bills designed to help build a technology-based economy.

Earlier this week, Colorado Chief Technology Officer John Hansen released a statewide plan to develop biotechnology and life sciences industry sectors in Colorado. Colorado's Place in the Sun: A Bioscience Future provides analysis, direction and recommended actions for three key sector areas — workforce development, business development, and research development.

Conventional wisdom in the technology-based economic development community is that increased access to risk capital is critical for building competitive economies. Establishing a causal relationship between early-stage capital and employment growth external to the companies receiving the funds has been difficult, however.

The Southern Growth Policies Board has released a toolkit to help communities understand the knowledge economy and how new economic forces affect quality of life and economic development. Seeing the Future: The Knowledge Economy seeks to inform people about the knowledge, skills and resources needed to compete in today’s economy.

Last week, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released the latest edition of Characteristics of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers in the United States, which reports characteristics for 2001. Valuable data is presented in the report on the demographic and employment characteristics of doctoral scientists and engineers in the U.S.

Tucson gains Community Investment Business Center, New Tech Park building

The National Institute of Standards and Technology of the U.S. Department of Commerce has announced it is accepting proposals from organizations in Florida, Hawaii and South Dakota to establish Manufacturing Technology Centers under the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. Approximately $4 million will be available to support these centers.

Rhode Island, like nearly every state in the country, is facing a projected budget deficit in FY 2004. To deal with a $175 million or 6.6 percent shortfall, 21 agencies are facing budget reductions in Governor Don Carcieri's first budget request to the Rhode Island General Assembly. However, demonstrating his commitment to "make strategic investments to promote job growth," Gov. Carcieri calls for increased support for several tech-based economic development initiatives.

Three-quarters of the nation's cities surveyed by the National League of Cities (NLC) report they are less able to meet their financial needs this year than they were a year ago. This is a sharp increase over the 55 percent of cities that said they were less able to meet financial needs in last year's survey by NLC, the oldest and largest national organization for American cities.

Washington State still ranks first nationally in the creation of new companies, according to the third annual Index of Innovation and Technology released by the Washington Technology Center (WTC), a state-funded organization that fosters technology employment growth. The Index also shows the number of patents earned by Washington inventors increased by 11 percent from 2000 to 2001.

Minnesota manufacturers are cutting payrolls, bidding low and scrambling to compete with the giant threat of cheap labor and enhanced manufacturing facilities offered in China, according to a recent survey of Greater Minnesota manufacturing companies.

Around the country, the current funding climate is forcing some technology groups to explore new relationships with each other, including consolidation. In other cases, it just makes good sense. For example, two of Maine's environmental and energy technology organizations are joining forces with the goal of advancing job growth, R&D and new product commercialization within their overlapping industries.

Encouraging innovation is an important part of the bottom line for many state and local technology-based economic development programs. The advantages or "spillover effects" of growing localized knowledge economies or concentrations of researchers and technology firms has been studied by academia for more than two decades. Much of the attention of that analysis and of subsequent public policy has been on the knowledge or process side of innovation.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced it intends to award approximately $30 million in FY 2005 funding under the Science and Technology Centers (STC): Integrative Partnerships program. NSF is encouraging proposals for high quality innovative research projects that undertake investigations across or within disciplines.