The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supported the development of 99 drugs from 1996-2020 — a total that includes 16 percent of all such treatments that made a “significant” advance over available medicines.

Women in academia are underrepresented in leadership positions at the 130 universities ranked as R1 (the highest level of research activity by the Carnegie Classification), a recent report done by the Eos Foundation’s Women’s Power Gap (WPG) Initiative found. The report found that women make up 55 percent of all PhD earners, but just 22 percent of all the presidents and 10 percent of system presidents of R1 universities as of September 2021. The study also found that 46 percent of the universities in the study had never had a woman leader.  

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced a $1.4 billion investment into rural areas of the U.S. for job training, business development, and technical assistance. These investments are granted through eight different programs to 751 awardees across 49 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. USDA estimates that the grants and loans provided by these awards will create or save at least 50,000 jobs in the rural United States.

The breakdown of the dollars invested and number of awards by program is as follows:

A “fire breathing economic development initiative” is unfolding at Kansas State University, and if it succeeds, it could add 3,000 jobs and $3 billion in new, outside investment to the state in the next 10 years.

While the overall U.S. venture capital market has drawn headlines for record-breaking total investment levels in 2021, the story has been far different for smaller deals. Data currently suggests a decline in deals under $1 million, and only modest growth for deals under $5 million. The final data may tell a slightly different story,[1] but the level of activity at the smaller end of the spectrum is clearly quite different than what is driving market coverage.

A research team including members from MIT and the Federal Reserve Board assessed the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to determine if the initiative was able to keep businesses from closing and people from becoming unemployed.

North Carolina is continuing to improve its innovation standing and its research and development enterprise continue to lead among other innovation metrics, according to a new state report. The North Carolina Board of Science, Technology, and Innovation published the eighth edition of its Tracking Innovation report. This report uses 39 measures of innovation capacity to evaluate North Carolina’s standing against other states in the nation.

Earlier this month, legislators introduced bipartisan and bicameral legislation to modify Opportunity Zones (OZs). The beneficial changes would include a reporting requirement, which is overdue for the program,[i] as well as decertification of relatively wealthy zones.

Today, SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council published a letter to Congress urging the adoption of key tech-based economic development policies in the final version of competitiveness legislation that will soon be conferenced between the two chambers. Known as the U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness Act (USICA) in the Senate and the America COMPETES Act of 2022 in the House, these bills are proposing to authorize new activities to support science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship across numerous federal agencies.

The PitchBook-NVA Venture Monitor Q1 2022 reports that overall venture capital (VC) investment activity was down in Q1 2022, a change from the unprecedented growth seen quarterly through 2021. However, angel and seed stage financing remained strong. Additionally, deal activity for early-stage deals had a strong start in Q1 2022, with a total of 1,499 reported deals as of March 31.

Earlier today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released information on the $500 million pool of technical assistance (TA) funds authorized as part of the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). The agency is allocating $200 million to the states, transferring $100 million to the U.S. Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), and retaining $200 million at this time. According to guidance released by Treasury, states can use their TA funds for legal, accounting and financial services.

A new working paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia used loan-level data from two fintech lenders, Funding Circle and LendingClub, to assess how the companies’ pre-pandemic lending patterns differed from those of traditional banks. The report finds fintechs contribute to a “more inclusive” financial system, expanding credit to more companies and at a lower cost.

This edition of Useful Stats presents an SSTI analysis for the number of SBIR/STTR awards from 2011 to 2020 (the most recently available complete data), examining which agencies make the most awards in each state and how each state’s composition of awards compares to the national profile.

Earlier today, the Economic Development Administration announced the 2022 notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for the Build to Scale program. State and local governments, nonprofits, institutions of higher education, National Labs and others are eligible to compete for a total of $45 million in funds to support new and expanded initiatives that support regional commercialization, entrepreneurship and capital formation efforts.

EDA has slightly restructured the program for this year’s competition, with two funding streams and two levels of awards for each.

A recent study found that the use of industrial robots (UIR) can reduce a country’s overall ecological footprint while simultaneously promoting economic growth. This is through timesaving, green employment, and energy upgrading effects that increase as the level of economic development and human capital within the country increases.

Between 2017 and 2021, 23 percent of proposals submitted to NASA for Phase I SBIR/STTR funding were approved (1,887 awards from 8,360 proposals). The acceptance rate for Phase II proposals, which are generally encouraged or discouraged based on Phase I outcomes, was 58 percent (791 of 1,359 approved).

Three states — Indiana, California and Arkansas — have recently participated in international diplomacy, creating strategic connections and developing agreements to address climate change and trade barriers with the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada. These recent agreements may suggest a shift toward innovation-focused diplomacy at the state level with nations across the globe.

The venture development organizations BioCrossroads, BioSTL, JumpStart, and

Two recent reports reveal U.S. standing in different global innovation spheres. The U.S. performance in advanced industries has been weak over the last two decades compared to other nations, finds a new Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) report that calls for an economic “moon shot” initiative to help boost U.S. performance. Meanwhile, new regions are entering the top 10 global startup ecosystems but Silicon Valley remains at the top, according to a recent report from Startup Genome.

Canadian provinces are overrepresented in North America’s most competitive states in the innovation economy with Ontario ranked third, British Columbia ranked fourth and Quebec ranked ninth, according to a competitiveness index from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Massachusetts, California, Ontario and Maryland were named overall leaders in subnational innovation competitiveness.

A recent paper published at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (FRBA) highlighted that unlike prior recessions where men experienced unemployment at higher rates, COVID-19 had a much greater effect on women. Women constituted nearly 60 percent of net job loss despite making up 47 percent of pre-pandemic employment.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) announced its intention to release a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in collaboration with the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office within the year. This FOA, titled “Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs” or “H2Hubs” will outline funding phases to promote the expansion of clean hydrogen energy and aid in the development of at least four clean hydrogen hubs throughout the U.S.

Manufacturing, healthcare services, information technology, building and construction, and transportation, distribution and logistics are the top five industries by number of applications submitted to the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Good Jobs Challenge, according to EDA.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) last week announced a new funding opportunity that includes two programs designed to strengthen equitable economic development strategies across the country. One program will add staff resource to local organizations focused on improving economic resilience and competitiveness in distressed regions across the country, while the second will provide technical assistance to enable organizations serving underserved populations and communities to participate in economic development planning and projects.

President Biden announced his intent to nominate Arati Prabhakar to serve as the next director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and once confirmed she would also become his chief science advisor.