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With several of the right elements already in place but scattered across a wide area, the two planning districts comprising the 13-county region surrounding Roanoke, Virginia, combined efforts to develop a strategic economic development strategy that focuses heavily on science and technology-based initiatives.

Anne Armstrong, president of Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology since 1999, has resigned from the position effective the end of this month. Virginia Secretary of Technology George C. Newstrom will serve as Interim President during a search for a new president.

Robert Templin, Jr., has been named the new president of Northern Virginia Community College, effective August 17. Templin, currently a senior fellow at the Morino Institute, was a previous president of Virginia' Center for Innovative Technology.

While tight state budgets have slowed the number of tech-based economic development programs being created by states, Kentucky and Oregon have both approved new laws designed to encourage the growth of technology companies.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has published the Science & Engineering State Profiles: 1999-2000, an online database. One-page statistical summaries are given for each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, permitting calculation of per capita statistics and rankings.

George Newstrom was sworn in as the Virginia Secretary of Technology. Newstrom succeeds Don Upson, who is returning to the private sector for technology consulting.

While 2002 marks the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, it also may be remembered as the first time an agency successfully finagled its way out of SBIR's requirement that 2.5 percent of extramural R&D be awarded to small technology companies.

To create new research centers in FY 2003, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is offering approximately $26 million through its Engineering Research Centers (ERC) Program. 



At least two awards totaling up to $13 million each will be made. The awards, subject to 10 percent cost sharing, will be distributed as follows: $2.5 million (year 1), $3 million (year 2), $3.5 million (year 3), and $4 million (years 4 and 5). 



Each new center will focus on the definition, fundamental understanding, development, and validation of the technologies needed to realize a well-defined class of engineered systems with the potential to spawn whole new industries or radically transform the product lines, processing technologies, or service delivery methodologies of current industries. 



Only U.S. academic institutions with undergraduate and doctoral engineering programs may submit pre-proposals as the lead institution. If the ERC is a multi-university effort, the lead university will be joined by long-term core partner institutions that share the responsibility for the ERC. 



These core partner institutions must have undergraduate and graduate engineering programs. Whether a single or multi-university center, short-term outreach in research and education involving a limited number of faculty, other investigators, and teachers from other universities or colleges and pre-college institutions outside the lead and core partner institutions is required. 



The Center Director must be a tenure-track or tenured faculty member in an engineering department at an eligible institution. In the case of a multi-institution ERC, the director must be a tenure-track or tenured member of the faculty of the lead university. The director's doctoral degree must be in engineering or a field of science. 



Playing critical roles in research, education, diversity, outreach and industrial collaboration, ERC innovations in research and education are expected to impact curricula at all levels from pre-college to life-long learning, to employ and reach out to a population that reflects the diversity of the U.S., and to be disseminated to and beyond academic and industry partners. 



A required letter of intent is due by March 15, 2002. Full proposals are not due until December 3, 2002. More information on the ERC program is available through NSF at: http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf0224

The National Science Foundation has launched the new, online Industrial Research and Development Information System (IRIS) to provide easy access to information on industrial R&D performance across a broad range of years and criteria.



The historical database (1953–1998) contains more than 2,500 statistical tables presenting R&D expenditures as a percentage of company sales, by industry, size of company, size of R&D program, type of cost (e.g., wages or materials), state, and source of funds. Data also is arranged to allow easy manipulation of trends analyses and state-by-state comparisons.



A late-September Data Brief from the Foundation (NSF 01-338) describes the new system and provides examples of its value for the S&T community. For more information, see http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/databrf/nsf01338/sdb01338.htm

The New Economy Transition Team (NETT) of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce has issued a 73-page plan that, if implemented successfully, could position Northern Kentucky as a center for life sciences and information technology, advanced manufacturing and financial services. 



NETT, in coordination with Northern Kentucky Tri-County Economic Development Corp. (Tri-ED), Northern Kentucky University and Madison E-Zone (a technology incubator in Covington, Ky.), made the New Economy Plan public on August 2. The plan will be combined with others from Lexington, Louisville, and other regions of the state to become the New Economy Plan for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. 



The plan contains four focus areas, including a series of initiatives in each area: 1.) expanding business clusters in life sciences, advanced manufacturing and information technology, 2.) nurturing new businesses, 3.) enhancing the infrastructure, and 4.) building a workforce for the future. Among the initiatives are: 

Earlier this week, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced awards estimated to total $65 million over five years to fund six major centers in nanoscale science and engineering. The awards are part of a series of NSF grants – totaling $150 million in fiscal year 2001 alone – for nano research in multiple disciplines. 



The six centers will be located at Columbia and Cornell Universities and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, Harvard University in Massachusetts, Northwestern University in Illinois, and Rice University in Texas. 



Nanoscale science, engineering and technology are focused on a scale ranging from the size of individual atoms to that of large molecules. The new Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers will develop new areas of research and help establish a nanotechnology workforce. The centers, intended to address challenges and opportunities that are too complex and multi-faceted for individual researchers or small teams to tackle in shorter periods of time, are expected to significantly advance the information, medical, manufacturing and environmental technologies. Other NSF grants will fund small, interdisciplinary research teams and individuals doing exploratory research in a wide range of areas. 



Working in partnerships with industry, national laboratories and other sectors, the centers will support education programs from the graduate to the pre-college level designed to develop a highly skilled workforce, advance pre-college training, and advance the public understanding of science and engineering. 



The six centers and their awards are: 

The National Science Foundation has named Judith A. Ramaley as the Foundation's new Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources (EHR). A biologist, Dr. Ramaley served most recently as president of the University of Vermont.