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The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced it is accepting applications for the SBA Clusters Program. Under the SBA Clusters Program up to four contracts may be made to lead organizations of innovation cluster initiatives from across the country. The awards are intended to help the lead organization bring together regional assets to support the cluster and provide services and resources to small businesses involved in the cluster. Applications are due July 31.

In recent decades as many countries have developed sophisticated national innovation strategies, the U.S. has generally avoided attempts to introduce a coordinated innovation policy system. Instead, U.S. leaders have placed their trust in the market, rather than the government, to generate knowledge, products and businesses. A new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) suggests that this approach ignores a major factor in the success of innovation economies.

Addressing accessibility, affordability and ensuring workforce preparedness topped legislators’ agendas in many states during the 2014 sessions. States and regions are increasingly competing for talent as the trend toward growing and nurturing innovation ecosystems continues.

The recent uptick in U.S. manufacturing activity, along with the attention generated by additive manufacturing and the Makers movement, has led to an increase in state initiatives to help cash in on this growth. In recent months, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Arizona have all taken steps to build stronger manufacturing sectors through research collaborations, grants and tax credits. Leaders in Colorado and New Jersey have pursued their own cluster-specific efforts to build stronger high-tech industries.

State legislators in many parts of the country took action this year to fund the construction of research infrastructure and provide financial support for commercialization. In Kansas, New York, Georgia, Maine and Wyoming, legislators funded the construction of laboratories and other innovative spaces at public universities to boost the high-tech economy. In Colorado, Maryland and a number of universities, new initiatives were rolled out to support public-private research collaborations and the commercialization of cutting-edge technology.

With an eye toward long-term payoffs associated with investments in research, lawmakers dedicated funds and strengthened ties with industry partners. Some states made significant investments in facilities and R&D to grow cancer research capabilities, while others looked to universities to establish new avenues for discovery or attract star researchers. In Washington, the life sciences community banded together to save a nine year-old grant fund that invests in R&D and helps the state remain competitive.

Several states announced new or expansions to existing capital programs during the 2014 legislative session. The proposals targeted increasing the availability of venture/risk capital for job creation and establishing or expanding angel tax credits to spur investment in targeted sectors. Nebraska lawmakers allocated $50,000 to support and increase venture capital in the state. In Minnesota, Gov. Mark Dayton extended the state’s Angel Tax credit for two more years and added additional funds.

To continue the growing trend of intrastate crowdfunding, six states passed exemptions including Alabama, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington.

While the promise of federal legislative reform for 2014 dims, as many as 21 states may have patent troll laws on the books before the end of the year. Although most of the power to curb patent trolling is held by the federal government, these state laws provide mechanisms to allow for action to be taken against any person that makes a bad faith assertion of patent infringement and other abusive patent litigations.

Lawmakers approved funding for a bond program that dedicates $50 million for re-tooling community colleges with the latest equipment, but failed to pass a larger proposal that would allow universities to compete for $100 million in bond funds for capital improvements to enhance engineering programs. The budget also includes $2 million to establish a new fund for global marketing of Michigan’s automotive sector and support of public-private collaborations with the auto industry.

Crowdfunding is touted by its proponents as a model that can democratize and neutralize gender bias in the existing small business investment community, for both female investors and entrepreneurs. Crowdfunding proponents point toward the disproportionate number of middle-aged men who are angel investors or work in the venture capital industry. Two recent academic research studies have found that reward-based crowdfunding in the U.S. and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending in Germany and the United States appear to be opening up opportunities for female entrepreneurs and investors.

Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker announced this week that the department would be accepting applications for new members to serve on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). The council advises the secretary on issues related to innovation, entrepreneurship and job skills training.  The secretary uses the council as a vehicle to facilitate dialogue between the agency and the innovation community. Members will be drawn from a mix of geographic locations, as well as from the private, government, academic and nonprofit sectors.

This week, the White House hosted its first Maker Faire where President Obama announced a number of new public-private collaborative efforts to spur U.S. manufacturing entrepreneurship. In order to capitalize on the recent spike in manufacturing entrepreneurship, the administration is enlisting more than 90 mayors and local leaders to make new spaces available for manufacturing and prototyping.

A pilot collaboration between the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will offer a nine-week boot camp to help biomedical researchers bring their discoveries to market. Academic researchers and entrepreneurs who have received SBIR/STTR Phase One awards from participating NIH institutes may apply to the I-Corps at NIH™ for training in building scalable business models around their technologies.

In a recent comparative study of state S&T policy dynamics in Georgia, Missouri and Texas, authors Jarrett Warshaw and James Hearn examine the nature of state efforts intended to bring together government, universities and industry to support innovation at publically funded universities and spur economic development.

Between December 2007 and February 2010, the manufacturing sector loss 2.3 million jobs, according to the Department of Commerce. This drastic decline accounted for about one-quarter of the negative shock experienced during those 26 months and the loss in manufacturing represented one-half the decline in U.S. GDP. In the aftermath of this decline, both public and private sector leaders began to search desperately for ways to stop the bleeding. A new Commerce report, Manufacturing Since the Great Recession, indicates that we may have found some success in halting the hemorrhage.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration and Harvard Business School have unveiled a new website that provides easy-to-navigate, granular data on U.S. economic clusters. The project aims to strengthen regional and national competitiveness by providing up-to-date, high-quality data on the economic performance of regions across the U.S. Users can browse a cluster dashboard, which maps out the strength of specific industries by region, or receive in-depth economic data on a particular region.

A growing number of metropolitan areas are incorporating urban density and connectedness into their innovation strategies by fostering innovation districts devoted to research commercialization, entrepreneurship and housing for highly skilled workers, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.  The districts combine the concentrated research activities of science parks with the accessibility and economic ties of city neighborhoods.

With nearly $10 million in additional funding for the upcoming year, the public-private Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC) will receive a boost in support for core programs and new resources to administer early stage business grants. MTC invests in emerging high-tech companies with a focus on bioscience industries.

Massachusetts continues to reign as the U.S. state best prepared to meet the challenges of the current and future global economy, according to the sixth edition of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s (ITIF) State New Economy Index.