The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $60 million in funding for its largest-ever cohort of university-based Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs) to assist small- and medium-sized manufacturers in reducing their carbon emissions and lowering energy costs.
Vulnerabilities in the international networks that supply goods and services needed for finished products used by the Department of Defense were exposed to a higher degree during the pandemic, and became the subject of a congressional Armed Services task force. The bipartisan Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force was established to make the security of the U.S.
Earlier this week, the House science committee advanced a series of technology-focused bills, including a $7 billion authorization of regional technology hubs. This legislation completes the committee’s work to produce a companion to the Senate’s U.S.
Earlier this week, the House science committee advanced a series of technology-focused bills, including a $7 billion authorization of regional technology hubs. This legislation completes the committee’s work to produce a companion to the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. The House and Senate legislation are not identical, however, and so the chambers will need to bring their versions into alignment. Among the key differences are that the House authorizes less funding for the program but also creates a new regional clean energy innovation program.
The PitchBook-NVCA Venture Capital Monitor for the first half of 2021 reveals that the market is set to break a number of investing records, but strikingly, the record levels of investment activity are all being set by the later stages of investment. At the other end of the funnel, activity is increasing, but not at the same pace as the overall market.
The findings from a recent webinar and report suggest that Employment Social Enterprises (ESEs) are significant market-based mechanisms that can address workforce misalignment by supplying employers with skilled workers while increasing economic mobility and addressing structural employment barriers.
Indiana and Illinois are two of the most recent states to implement innovation voucher programs, adding another tool to their efforts to increase economic activity among innovators and entrepreneurs.
Foundations, in almost all of their stripes, represent an underutilized but often willing partner to encourage regional innovation. Relationships may take time to nurture, but the resulting collaborations can be of critical importance for advancing your local TBED agenda. To spur your thinking, the six examples below from the past three weeks alone show the various ways foundations are stepping up to help support regional innovation and entrepreneurship.
Support for small companies has long been a pillar of federal and state policies meant to drive business formation, job creation, and the resulting spillover economic benefits for regional economies. The debate remains, however, about whether smaller or larger businesses play an outsized role in the nation’s economy.
Support for small companies has long been a pillar of federal and state policies meant to drive business formation, job creation, and the resulting spillover economic benefits for regional economies. The debate remains, however, about whether smaller or larger businesses play an outsized role in the nation’s economy. This edition of Useful Stats provides some context to the argument, finding that although smaller and newer establishments accounted for the greatest amount of total job creation, job losses from small business closures reduced the group’s net job creation significantly, leaving larger companies to account for the greatest share of net job creation in 2019.
Five clusters have been added to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Regional clusters Initiative, according to information available through USASpending. The Regional Cluster Initiative was launched in 2010 to maximize the potential of clusters and better support small businesses. The initiative connects innovation assets so that small businesses can effectively leverage them to commercialize new technologies and expand into new markets.
President Joe Biden this morning delayed his planned departure for Europe to announce a framework for the Build Back Better Act, a $1.75 trillion plan that the president said he was confident could pass both houses of Congress.
Editor’s note, Sept. 16: This article has been updated to include additional science- and innovation-related funding proposals announced as the House continues its work on the reconciliation bill.
Editor’s note, Sept. 16: This article has been updated to include additional science- and innovation-related funding proposals announced as the House continues its work on the reconciliation bill.
Committees have marked up their drafts for the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, and the proposals include multiple, significant investments that could strengthen regional innovation economies. This article identifies more than $85 billion in potential innovation-focused spending without including much of the legislation’s potential R&D investments. Among the latest items are an additional $4 billion for Regional Technology Hubs and a manufacturing-focused $1 billion for the State Small Business Credit Initiative. These add to the previously-announced $5 billion for Regional Technology Hubs, nearly $3 billion to support incubators and accelerators, and dramatic increases in tuition support for higher education. Further action is required in the House and Senate before final funding is approved.
Despite the pandemic and economic downturn of 2020, the amount of money invested by angel investors increased more than 6 percent over 2019, according to the 2020 Halo Report, an annual report on angel investments primarily within the United States released collaboratively by the Angel Resource Institute and Pitchbook. The report provides financial metrics on seed and Series A angel investments with key insights into regional differences, while offering an analysis on the demographic trends among the CEOs of companies at these stages.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) awarded $3.7 million total in federal funding across nine grant recipients to establish MBDA Advanced Manufacturing Centers, Export Centers, and a Federal Procurement Center.
NSF announced five new multi-institution I-Corps Hubs to deliver entrepreneurship training to academic researchers and scale the National Innovation Network. Each hub is funded at $3 million per year for five years and comprises a regional alliance of at least eight universities. The hubs are intended to offer a more integrated approach than the previous I-Corps Nodes and I-Corps Sites, which were funded separately. The new model will provide increase funding and enable scaling I-Corps across the country.
The Executive Office of the President released its first research and development memo at the end of August for fiscal year 2023. The memo is intended to provide instructions to agencies about the administration's priorities for R&D spending and activities, which should then be reflected in budget requests and agency activities. It highlights the research and development goals of the Biden administration in areas such as pandemic readiness, climate change mitigation, emerging technology, national security, public trust in STEM, and diversity and equity.
The supremacy of the U.S. research enterprise has been eroding, particularly challenged by China and other Asian countries, and a new draft report from the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) at the Department of Energy (DOE) concludes that U.S. leadership in basic energy sciences will continue to diminish without intervention.
The supremacy of the U.S. research enterprise has been eroding, particularly challenged by China and other Asian countries, and a new draft report from the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) at the Department of Energy (DOE) concludes that U.S. leadership in basic energy sciences will continue to diminish without intervention. Specifically, the report finds that to stay internationally competitive in basic energy sciences the U.S. must: increase total funding for R&D, spanning from basic and fundamental research to experimental development; focus multi-disciplinary research on several key areas of energy sciences; increase the nation’s ability to attract and retain the world’s top scientists and engineers; and, facilitate interactions among basic, applied, and industrial researchers to accelerate the translation of research into socially beneficial technologies.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced a request for information (RFI) to help inform the creation of a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Institute focused on industrial decarbonization.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced a request for information (RFI) to help inform the creation of a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Institute focused on industrial decarbonization. Released by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the RFI seeks input from stakeholders in identifying key opportunities to decarbonize energy-intensive sectors across America’s economy through public-private collaboration.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), through the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)), announced awards totaling $15 million for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to establish Centers of Excellence (COEs) in Biotechnology and Materials Science.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), through the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)), announced awards totaling $15 million for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to establish Centers of Excellence (COEs) in Biotechnology and Materials Science. The COEs will provide training to underrepresented students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, and will also provide internships at defense laboratories while also offering training to K-12 students to strengthen the talent pool entering the STEM pipeline.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is seeking applicants for the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). NACIE advises the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is seeking applicants for the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). NACIE advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on matters related to accelerating innovation and entrepreneurship, advancing the commercialization of research and development, promoting workforce development, and other related matters. NACIE is managed by the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Members will be selected based on their ability to advise the secretary on matters relating to the acceleration of innovation and the support for and expansion of entrepreneurship, and will serve for two years.
The Committee on the Future of NSF EPSCoR (NSF's Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) requests input from the broad EPSCoR stakeholder community on EPSCoR’s investment strategies and opportunities for increased success. The committee was convened as part of a year-long visioning activity to guide the program.
The Committee on the Future of NSF EPSCoR (NSF's Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) requests input from the broad EPSCoR stakeholder community on EPSCoR’s investment strategies and opportunities for increased success. The committee was convened as part of a year-long visioning activity to guide the program. The visioning process will help determine the effectiveness of EPSCoR’s current investment strategies, as well as help consider novel strategies or changes to the current strategies that would enable NSF EPSCoR and its jurisdictional partners achieve its mission more effectively.
The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund of the U.S. Department of Treasury awarded 100 community development entities (CDEs) $5 billion in New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) earlier this month. The purpose of this tax credit program is to stimulate investment and create jobs in low-income urban and rural communities that would benefit from economic revitalization — especially amid the financial hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new strategic plan for the Appalachian region reaffirms the Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) primary investment goals emphasizing economic development. It benefits from insights gathered from more than 1,800 stakeholders and is built on multistate and regional collaboration.
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has released a new request for information (RFI) related to a national strategic plan for advanced manufacturing, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are seeking information on how the scientific community uses public data tools. Both RFIs provide an opportunity for the tech-based economic development field to shape the future of federal innovation policy.
Understanding the industry-level dynamics of business and job creation can help pinpoint which industries in regional economies may be hotspots for innovation activity.
Understanding the industry-level dynamics of business and job creation can help pinpoint which industries in regional economies may be hotspots for innovation activity. This edition of Useful Stats builds on previous SSTI analysis of business and job creation by state and examines data from the Census Bureau’s recently updated Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) on net establishment and job creation in 2019 at the state and industry levels. The data serves as a useful baseline of where the economy stood prior to the pandemic’s start in 2020. While the national data shows that five industries experienced net establishment losses in 2019, industry trends at the state level vary widely with some states seeing losses across many industries while others experienced losses in only a few. There were also similar national- and state-level trends in net job creation in 2019. This analysis also provides additional context by examining the long-term state trends in these metrics from 2005 to 2019.
The news that a drug has been developed that appears to significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19, understandably garnered international attention. While most of the coverage centered on Merck, dig a bit deeper and one learns that Emory University researchers developed molnupiravir which Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have licensed.