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Teri Ooms is the first director of the new Joint Urban Studies Center in Wilkes Barre, Penn.

BioFlorida named Diana Robinson as its new president.

Brian Vogt has been appointed director of Colorado's Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Recognizing an immediate need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the adverse consequences of climate change, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have announced their intention to become partners and act aggressively to address climate change and promote energy diversity.

For many areas of the country, the first five years of the 21st century may well be remembered as a period of dramatic economic transformation, or the beginning of one as the rate of change continues at a fast clip. Having statistics for the five-year period of 2000-2005, however, provides the first opportunity for policymakers and academic researchers to look for meaning in the trends.

American K-12 students are becoming less and less interested in math, science and technology fields. Recent studies reveal that students are increasingly dropping science and math classes and pursuing careers in the arts and social services. Since national and regional competitiveness in high-tech fields depends on a skilled labor market, fueled by college graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, many areas are attempting to generate more interest in these subjects.

A new report released in conjunction with the Fourth International Competitive Brazil Congress gives a positive assessment of the country's potential as a leader in life sciences and provides useful model for competitiveness assessments in other regions. The report, Mechanisms of Innovation and Competitiveness, was prepared by the Center for the Support of Technology Development at the University of Brasilia and coordinated by the five-year-old Competitive Brazil Movement (Movimento Brasil Competitivo, MBC).

With Randall Olson's resignation, Pat Dillon has become the executive director for Minnesota Project Innovation.

BioCrossroads, the Central Indiana life sciences network, announced Chuck Schalliol is the organization's new chief executive officer and president.

William Tew has resigned as director of the Office of Licensing and Technology Development for Johns Hopkins University.

Ohio State University has appointed Vicki Butland to serve as interim president and chief executive officer for the Science and Technology Campus Corp.

Eric Cromwell has been appointed to serve as Director of Technology for the Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development.

Ohio State University has appointed Vicki Butland to serve as interim president and chief executive officer for the Science and Technology Campus Corp.

Eric Cromwell has been appointed to serve as Director of Technology for the Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development.

After 11 years as president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), Carl Feldman has announced he will resign at the end of the year.

Robert Geolas, director of the Centennial Campus at North Carolina State, is resigning to become director of the new International Center for Automotive Research at the Clemson University.

Victor Hwang has been promoted to the position of president at Larta.

Supporters of NIST's Advanced Technology Program (ATP) have weathered years of attempts by members of the House and the Bush Administration to eliminate the program, but this may be the biggest hurdle yet: The Senate Appropriations Committee approved language calling for the program's termination as part of the Department of Commerce fiscal year 2007 appropriations. The first of only two ATP-related sentences included in the Senate Committee report 109-580 accompanying H.R.

In a report released last week, a Toronto group says that creative industries may soon overtake ICT and business services as the fastest growing sector in the region's economy. In order to preserve this momentum and ensure that other industries benefit from the presence of a strong creative sector, the authors recommend enlisting regional leaders to create programs that support creative people, creative enterprises, affordable spaces for creative work, and a shared community vision.

"More than one-third of the nation's loss of manufacturing jobs between 2000-2005 occurred in seven Great Lakes states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin," write Howard Wial and Alec Friedhoff in a new paper from the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution.

Also released this week, and related to the negative change of U.S. manufacturing employment, is a new working paper by members of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Outsourcing Jobs? Multinationals and US Employment, by Ann Harrison and Margaret McMillan, examines the labor market decisions of U.S. multinationals at home and abroad for the years 1977 to 1999. Using firm level data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the authors econometric model reveals changes in the employment and operations of U.S.

Based on the two versions of the FY 2007 budget working their ways respectively through the House and Senate, the National Science Foundation (NSF) appears to be positioned to receive its first significant increase in funding in many years. Both chambers' versions of the NSF appropriations provide increases above the FY06 appropriations in excess of 7 percent, with the full House approving an increase of 7.9 percent in June.

Last week, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley signed the budget agreement passed by the state's General Assembly for fiscal years 2006-07. The budget contains many adjustments favoring K-12 and higher education and several allocations for technology-based growth initiatives.

It caught the attention of quite a few people when it was first proposed in early 2001, but Maine's investment in 2002 to provide every seventh and eighth grader with a new laptop - approximately 32,000 students and 4,000 teachers - continues to provide a useful example of the size and type of commitment and risk that elected leaders have to be willing to make to transform the outlook for a state or regional economy. It took strong leadership and determination from then-Gov.

The Department of Education's Committee on the Future of Higher Education has released a second draft of its report on the state of American colleges and universities. As reported in the July 10 issue of the Digest, the document originally released by the committee harshly criticized the U.S. higher education system for wasteful spending, lack of academic rigor, and failure to serve the needs of the national economy.

While much of the attention in the national dialogue on competitiveness and innovation has focused on federal R&D investments and science and tech education, a 62-year-old independent organization of business and education leaders says our attention should be much earlier in the education process. A new report by the Committee on Economic Development (CED) asserts economic development leaders should make quality preschools a top priority.