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The West Virginia Legislature recently approved a bill to create the West Virginia Science & Technology Policy Advisory Board.  The 11- member board will be appointed by the Governor and is expected to:

Earlier this month, President Clinton signed legislation designed to ease the transfer of federal technology by providing clarification on intellectual property rights and offering incentives to federal laboratories and their researchers. The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (H.R. 2196) was sponsored by Rep. Morella (R-Md).

While Congress and the White House continue to try to resolve differences on the FY96 federal budget, the Clinton Administration has released its detailed budget proposal for FY97.

The FY97 budget proposal calls for increasing spending on R&D to $72.3 billion in FY97, up from $71.5 billion in FY96.

Programs of particular interest to the states by federal agency are:

Department of Commerce

Clinton is expected to sign an emergency spending bill later today that will keep the government in operation through next Friday, March 22. Without the bill, parts of the government would have shut down for the third time this fiscal year.

Almost halfway through federal FY 1996, nine government departments are operating on temporary spending authority. Agencies that are affected include the Department of Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NASA, and the National Science Foundation.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report on the implementation of the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Pilot Program. STTR is closely modeled after the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program with one notable exception: in the STTR Program, a small business must collaborate with a nonprofit research institution, such as a university. This collaboration is permitted but not required under SBIR.

The program began in FY1994 as a 3-year pilot and the authorizing legislation required that GAO report on the implementation of the program.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced today the addition of three more cluster organizations to the portfolio of communities supported through the SBA Regional Innovation Clusters initiative, raising the total number of awardees in the program to 14.

The last decade has seen a rapid expansion and deepening of the types of vehicles that fund startup firms in the U.S. and worldwide, according to The Globalisation of Angel Investments – a new study from Josh Lerner, Antoinette Schoar, Stanislav Sokolinksy, and Karen Wilson. In particular, the authors have seen a growing role for angel groups and other more “individualistic” funding options, such as super angels or crowd sourcing platforms.

At more than $456 billion, the value of research and development performed in the United States grew 4.8 percent from 2012 to 2013 according to new data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). Over that same one-year period, U.S. gross domestic product grew at just 3.7 percent.

Venture investors around the world have more confidence in the U.S. market than any other in the world, according to the 2015 Global Venture Capital Confidence Survey from Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Israel, Canada, China and the UK also ranked among the top five. The U.S. policy environment, however, received lower reviews.

At more than 54 million, freelancers now make up more than one-third of the U.S. workforce, according to Freelancing in America 2015, an annual report commissioned by The Freelancers Union and Upwork. Half of all freelancers surveyed for the report said that, regardless of pay, they would not take a traditional job. Furthermore, 60 percent of respondents said that they were freelancing more by choice than by necessity, compared to 53 percent the previous year.

On National Manufacturing Day, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced they will commit $5.8 million over the next three years to establish and sustain a consortium focused on the identification of new, emerging areas of advanced manufacturing.

Over the last couple months, the San Francisco-based Uber, a mobile-app-based transportation network, announced partnerships with institutions of higher education in the Northeast. In February, Uber and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) launched a strategic partnership that includes the launch of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center, a Pittsburgh-based research laboratory to advance Uber’s mission of bringing safe, reliable transportation to everyone, everywhere.

Since the establishment of the Tennessee Promise in 2014, the first statewide free community college effort, community college systems and states are outlining their own strategies to make a two-year education free for students in their region in attempt to create an educated, qualified workforce that addresses the needs of industry and promotes economic prosperity. While it may remain too early to judge the benefits and the costs of these programs – lawmakers and educational professionals remain divided on the issue. 

The Department of Energy (DOE) released the 2015 Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR), a more than 500-page report examining the status of foundational energy science and technology (S&T). The QTR also highlights the research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) opportunities with a focus on technologies with commercialization potential in the mid-term and beyond.

Researchers from the Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City and Atlanta, along with the John J Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, recently published a comprehensive examination of the state of contemporary workforce initiatives. Editors Carl Van Horn, Tammy Edwards and Todd Green have assembled chapters and case studies from more than 70 authors that depict challenges, long-term structural changes and policy opportunities in national, state and local workforce efforts in the current economy.

As the Federal Aviation Administration continues to propose regulations around the fledging unmanned aircraft system (UAS) industry in order to ensure that it integrates into the current system as well as possible, states are beginning to act in order to improve their own competitiveness.

As a reminder, the closing date for applications to the Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program is Monday, October 5. A program of the EDA’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the 2015 RIS Program Competition includes $10 million to support two unique grant opportunities:

Earlier this week during a keynote address at the United Nations, a U.S. Department of State official unveiled an initiative to bring 1.5 billion people around the world online by 2020. Global Connect, the new initiative, will be a cross-agency effort to make Internet access a top priority in foreign policy. The State Department announcement explicitly states that Internet access is being made a priority because of its role in entrepreneurship, innovation, knowledge flows and market creation.

This week, the Obama administration launched TechHire, a new, multi-sector initiative that seeks to educate workers through universities, community colleges, high-quality online courses, and other nontraditional approaches like “coding bootcamps,” with many programs not requiring a four-year degree.

Economic conditions across the country continue to improve, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) latest release of gross state product (GSP) data. GSP is derived as the sum of the gross domestic product originating in all the industries in a state. The period between 2008 and 2009, where the U.S. GDP decreased by 2 percent, marked a transition for many states, where their gross state product either decreased from the year before or where their growth rate was subdued.

Seed stage valuations have risen steadily over the last five years to an all-time high of 3.95 million (Median), a 30% increase over 2014, according to the recently released 2015 Q2 ARI HALO Report from the Angel Resource Institute at Willamette University (ARI). The authors found that all U.S.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it is accepting applications for the first round of its Small Business Vouchers Pilot (SBV) program. Under the SBV program, the DOE will commit up to $20 million in technical and research assistance awards to help small businesses bring next-generation clean energy technologies. Companies may apply for and receive up to $300,000 in assistance from U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories nationwide.

Last week, the Treasury Department released guidance recognizing foundations may make investments with a wider range of return and risk expectations so long as they are not jeopardizing or compromising their charitable missions.  Proponents for the change expect the guidance to open the doors to more mission-related investments (MRIs), impact investing and innovative finance approaches to dealing with the growing array of societal and environmental issues confronting the globe.

While most state legislative sessions ended over the summer, a number of states only recently approved spending for FY16. Governors in Alabama, North Carolina and New Hampshire have approved budgets in the past few weeks, each after months of tense negotiations. SSTI reviews budgets in each of these states for spending related to technology-based economic development. For past articles in this series, visit ssti.org/tags/state-budget.

While speaking in Detroit last week, Vice President Joe Biden announced the creation of an Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IAMCI)  location in Detroit, aimed at creating better composite materials for wind turbines, compressed gas storage, and in particular, the automotive industry. Funded by the U.S.