Whether one calls them transformational or disruptive, challenging or exciting, topics like generative AI, Big Tech, climate change, and geopolitical/economic issues will have significant influences on the future focus and efforts of every organization employing readers of this newsletter. There hasn’t been a forum for the field to talk about all of it openly and honestly—until December, that is.
The U.S. National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) program announced that 71 teams are advancing to the next stage of the second NSF Engines competition.
The European Union is engaged in a debate about changing its systems for R&D funding, the first potentially significant changes since its current framework program began in 1984. A group of 15 individuals from research and industry selected by the European Commission last year has submitted a report, Align, act, accelerate, which gives recommendations for overhauling the system.
When Tennessee reported on its first cohort of students after implementing Tennessee Promise, the nation’s first statewide free community college effort, SSTI reported on the program’s impressive early results. The graduation rate had increased over the previous year’s non-Promise cohort, and overall, 3,257 students in the 2015 cohort earned a degree or certificate within five semesters, an 82% increase over the pre-Promise 2014 group.
As SSTI reported earlier this fall in its series of articles on higher education, college tuition and student loan debt are rising.
Since the pandemic, those working on local prosperity through the nexus of science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship—the four cornerstones of SSTI’s mission—have seen the largest investment yet by the federal government to catalyze and support their work. It awakened teams of organizations across the country in virtually every city, institution of higher education or region to start or improve innovation-centered economic development strategies.
While most of the country’s attention has been on the contests for control of the White House and Congress, eleven states and two territories, including Puerto Rico, held gubernatorial elections on Nov. 5.
Regional cooperation economic development is believed to stimulate growth in various ways, including increased trade, enhanced movement of technologies from lab to market, and improved resource allocation. Federal support for innovation-driven growth has increasingly forced applicants to take integrated regional approaches. However, empirical evidence on the specific impacts of such cooperation is scant.
The U.S. National Science Foundation announced awards totaling approximately $40 million to support research and STEM workforce development in Delaware, Guam, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Vermont, according to a January 22 NSF press release.
In this week’s continuing coverage of gubernatorial addresses as they discuss the innovation economy, the following highlights have been selected from five of the eight State of the States or budget addresses given between Jan. 17 and Jan. 28, 2025, by the governors from Maine, Missouri, New Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin.
Artificial intelligence, market saturation, and shifting demands from both employers and students are driving changes in coding bootcamps and other programs in the tech training sector, according to a recent Inside Higher Education story. These factors have contributed to several closures in the past year:
SSTI’s new analysis of NIH data reveals the agency’s external R&D spending per award has been essentially treading water for the past 25 years in terms of real dollars—rising just 4% since FY 2000 when adjusted for inflation. This slow growth comes despite the crucial role NIH funding plays in technology-based economic development (TBED) policies across many states, particularly in the biomedical and life sciences.
President Biden signed legislation that reauthorized the Economic Development Administration (EDA) on Jan. 4. With the Heritage Foundation, among others, consistently calling for EDA’s elimination, EDA’s reauthorization is no small feat on its own. The strong bipartisan support for the bill, which included provisions related to water resources development, is perhaps even more remarkable.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced awards totaling approximately $210 million in implementation grants, ranging between approximately $22 million and $48 million, to six Tech Hub designees from recently passed appropriations from Congress.
The most recent TBED Community of Practice webinar, “SBA’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition in Action,” featured two previous winners of the GAFC who provided tips on how to prepare for and what to expect from the competition. A representative from SBA was also on hand to give the agency’s perspective.
The Future of Jobs Report 2025 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) explores how labor markets are being shaped by emerging technologies, demographic shifts, and environmental pressures. The report analyzes the evolving trends in employment, identifying both the risks of job displacement and the opportunities for job creation in a rapidly changing global economy.
With the start of the new year, most governors deliver State of the State addresses or Budget addresses laying out their priorities for the coming year. With revenues for many states relatively consistent with forecasters expectations, lawmakers, with a few exceptions, continue to maintain cautious or constrained views of their funding priorities and proposed initiatives. As a result, many governors in SSTI’s analysis of addresses delivered so far this season, are speaking more about previously implemented programs and their continued successes rather than rolling out many new programs.
Fewer of the youngest and later stage innovation-driven companies are receiving private venture capital at a time when the country needs more of both to retain our global economic leadership, according to data released in the latest report from PitchBook and NVCA. Across 2024, United States VC has seen an increase in overall deal value (+$47 billion) despite a decrease in deal count (-936) since the prior year, reveals the Q4 2024 Venture Monitor report.
Recent headlines have been full of discussion on cryptocurrencies and speculation on significant changes in federal policy related to the technology. Anticipating federal action, leaders of several states are exploring ways to get their own jurisdictions involved in the space. Here are some recent examples, drawing from proposed legislation to implemented policies and structures for acceptance of the financial innovation:
States Considering Bitcoin Reserves
A recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Self-reinforcing Glass Ceilings by Carlos F. Avenancio-León, Alessio Piccolo, and Leslie Sheng Shen delves into the complexities of the gender pay gap, even after it has narrowed. The authors challenge the conventional understanding that a shrinking gender pay gap automatically leads to greater gender equality.
Higher education R&D expenditures, while continuing to steadily increase, have not grown evenly across state lines. This matters to successful TBED policymakers because a strong R&D enterprise within a state’s public and private institutions of higher education can and should provide a consistent source of skilled workers, new technology, and sources for innovation-driven business growth. So where is R&D growing?
The United States’ global competitiveness rank, as calculated by the International Institute of for Management Development, fell three points from 9th in 2023 to 12th in 2024. The nation’s ranking for government efficiency had an even sharper drop of nine points, from 25th in 2023 to 34th in 2024. In timely response to these trends, two federal advisory committees recently submitted reports outlining ways for the U.S.
The new Tech Hub awards from EDA and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines (Engines) program support regions advancing a critical technology area with existing traction in their region but for proposers, identifying such areas is often challenging.
January 22, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET | Zoom
Enterprise Minnesota, the official Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Center for the state, recently released its annual State of Manufacturing survey.