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Tuesday’s announcement by Revolution of the creation of a $150 million Rise of the Rest Seed Fund for companies located outside of Silicon Valley builds on Steve Case’s tour to connect with entrepreneurs throughout the middle of the country. The Rise of the Rest Seed Fund enjoys the backing of more than three dozen other big investors from Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt to the Waltons and Kochs, and is intended to provide support and connections to entrepreneurs in small towns and underserved cities.

Support for the recently introduced Startup Act continues to build across the country. The legislation, profiled earlier in the Digest, would accelerate the commercialization of university research, improve the regulatory processes at the federal, state and local levels, and modernize a critical Economic Development Administration (EDA) program to promote innovation and spur economic growth.

Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) along with Senators Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)  introduced the Startup Act today – legislation that would help regions throughout the country address critical gaps between R&D and economic prosperity. SSTI has worked with the offices on sections of the bill that reauthorize and expand the Regional Innovation Strategies program and would implement a new commercialization grants program. SSTI supports the Startup Act (S.

Late last week, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) released “Tech Hubs Program Fact Sheet,” which provides some information on where the Tech Hubs program is headed. However, the sheet leaves many questions unanswered and raises new questions about how the program will be administered. The program, authorized in the CHIPS and Science Act at $10 billion, received $500 million in funding to date.

Venture capital (VC) activity continued to decline in the first quarter of 2023, according to data from Pitchbook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q1 2023. Total deal count declined, with exit count and venture-growth also slowing, and angel and seed activity hitting a 10-quarter low. The difficulties facing the market grew with tensions from the continuation of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and high inflation rates.

The European Council and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement to strengthen Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem, a deal designed to double the EU’s global market share in semiconductors from 10% to 20% by 2030.

Mark your calendar for Sept. 6-8 to join us in Atlanta for the 2023 SSTI Annual Conference!

Attendees will have the chance to share best practices and problem solve with colleagues who share your passion for innovation. There will be opportunities to explore funding sources to help take your projects to the next level, learn about the latest trends and topics in the innovation economy, and more!

A study titled Incubators, accelerators and urban economic development,[1] published in the Urban Studies Journal last year, found positive impacts on employment and access to capital for participants.

Cybersecurity efforts have been increasing across the country. In July, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who also serves as chair of the National Governors Association (NGA), announced that 38 governors signed A Compact to Improve State Cybersecurity – a multi-state, coordinated cybersecurity effort focused in three areas that will

The U.S. Census Bureau in February released a new experimental data product designed to better measure the business dynamics of innovative firms (BDS-IF). The new Business Dynamics Statistics of U.S. High Tech Industries provides measures of business dynamics for what the Census classifies as high-tech and non-high-tech industries, defined by science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupation intensity.

A new Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) release shows that over the past five years of available data (2018-2022), nationwide per capita personal income increased by 21.64%, rising from $53,786 to $65,423, with an average yearly percentage change of +5.04%.

EDA is now accepting applications for its $4.5 million FY 2023 STEM Talent Challenge to support programs to train science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) talent and help fuel regional innovation economies.

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) within the Department of Labor would receive $6.9 billion under the president’s proposed FY 2018 budget, a $3.1 billion (31.1 percent) decrease from the FY 2017 approved budget.

This article was edited on April 19th, 2023, to correct for an error in the original data analysis.

U.S. companies spent 18 percent of their research and development dollars outside of the United States in 2013, according to data recently released by the NSF. The $73 billion in foreign R&D is concentrated in the information industry, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and automobiles and parts. Those four industries accounted for 52 percent of all foreign R&D performance by U.S.

Congress has passed a budget for FY 2017 that largely continues support for federal innovation programs and R&D investments. Among the highlights are $17 million for Regional Innovation Strategies (a $2 million increase over FY 2016), level funding of $130 million for the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership and $5 million for SBA’s clusters program. In reviewing dozens of line items, offices that had received significant cuts in the White House’s skinny budget appear to receive some of the largest funding increases (such as the Appalachian Regional Commission, Community Development Block Grant and ARPA-E). However, with the exception of multi-billion dollar increases for Department of Defense R&D, many increases are rather small in terms of overall dollars. This is, at least in part, a reflection of non-defense spending caps rising by only $40 million for FY 2017, limiting the availability of new funds. In this context, science and innovation gains are particularly impressive, with a five percent overall increase for federal R&D that particularly benefits NASA and NIH.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) announced $26 million in awards to expand and diversify the economy in coal-impacted communities in five states. This adds to the $47 million ARC has invested since 2015 through the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER) Initiative. The 31 awards that were announced in late January are projected to create or retain more than 2,500 jobs and leverage an additional $32 million from public and private investors.

This week the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released Regional Innovation: Federal Programs and Issues for Consideration, which provides a summary of federal programs supporting regional innovation systems (RIS), including programs of the CHIPS and Science Act.

Last year's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) reauthorization included a new requirement that participating agencies work to identify foreign connections of applying companies. Certain types of connections to “countries of concern,” which include China and Russia, could result in the small business being prohibited from receiving federal funds. The U.S.

What is the value of a college degree today? While tuition costs continue to rise, opinions on the perceived value of the degrees institutions of higher education provide are falling.

Following a jolt of outmigration and population declines from some of the country’s most populous counties in 2021, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that county growth patterns are returning to pre-pandemic rates. The U.S.

Megatrends like ageing societies and digitization are expected to shape future research and development agendas across the globe, according to a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A broader distribution of science, technology and innovation are expected around the world due to the fast pace of economic development in emerging economies, and global competition for talent and resources will most likely intensify according to the OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2016. Such megatrends, and others highlighted in the report, require policy responses that will likely face major constraints, including high public debt, international security threats, a possible erosion of social cohesion and the rise of influential non-state actors, the report maintains.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the revised Bayh-Dole Act rule, “Rights to Federally Funded Inventions and Licensing of Government Owned Inventions,” clarifying procedures and removing outdated references.

This week the Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced it had completed awarding $27.9 million in cooperative agreements to establish eight economic development Communities of Practice, including the Technology-Based Economic Development (TBED) Community of Practice led by SSTI to help build the capacity and disseminate effective technology-based economic development practices across the innovation industry