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The Department of Commerce is accepting nominations for the 2005 National Medal of Technology awards, the nation’s highest honor awarded by the President to America's leading technological innovators.

2004 S&E Indicators includes chapter of state-level metrics

The U.S. remains the world's leading producer and net exporter of high-technology products, ranking among the global leaders in research and development (R&D) spending. However, ongoing economic and workforce changes make the outlook for the future uncertain, according to Science and Engineering (S&E) Indicators 2004, a biennial report of the National Science Board (NSB) to the President.

Venture capital (VC) kept up a steady pace in the first three months of 2004, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/Thomson Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree™ Survey. Investments in the first quarter of 2004 totaled $4.6 billion going into 618 companies, the data show. The figure is below the $5.2 billion invested in the fourth quarter of 2003, but above the first quarter total of a year ago, $4.2 billion.

Amid criticism from taxpayers, legislators in Hawaii agreed to renew the widely debated bill that extends high-technology tax credit for another five years, without a provision requiring the disclosure of companies that receive the credits, the Honolulu Advertiser recently reported.

Competition for state, federal and industrial funding to support university research is increasingly fierce in the U.S. Growing interest in developing academic research capacity, eroding state support for higher education and federal R&D budgets barely keeping pace with inflation, let alone absorbing the growing percentage dedicated to Congressional earmarks, are some of the reasons.

Washington State remains poised to capture more benefits from its technology-driven economy, according to the Index of Innovation and Technology released last month by the Washington Technology Center (WTC). As the state's lead organization to support science and technology, WTC publishes the Index to provide the state's decision makers with annual benchmarks for setting policy and  public investments to promote technology-based economic development.

The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) recently held its 18th International Conference in Atlanta, honoring excellence in business incubation programs, graduates and client companies. NBIA, a nonprofit organization, works to advance incubation and entrepreneurship. This year’s recipients include:

Cleveland Fed: "Innovation, Growth, and Economic Policy in an Environment of Change,"

At a time when manufacturing jobs are relenting to the pressures of an expanded service sector, foreign competition and productivity growth, the idea of economic prosperity has a renewed urgency with innovation as the greatest strength and flexibility the greatest asset, argues a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Nearly all public schools in the U.S. are connected to the Internet, according to a survey published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The survey, Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994 – 2000, shows that 98 percent of public schools had access to the Internet by the fall of 2000, representing a 3 percent increase over 1999 and a 26 percent increase since 1997.

Is a strong university research component critical to local tech-based economic development? Many argue this position, including SSTI (Using Research and Development to Grow State Economies). Using data on royalties, licenses, and job creation figures, others have demonstrated the economic contributions of university R&D.