This article is part one of a two part series focused on the intersection between economic opportunity and the economic development practice.  

A lack of economic opportunity could threaten American innovation, according to new research from Stanford economist Raj Chetty and other members of the Equality of Opportunity Project. The authors advocate that in light of empirical research showing the worsening effects of economic segregation and inequality, the economic development community needs to support new strategies and tactics that can deliver “realistic economic opportunity” to more communities across the country. If the future of American inventiveness depends on place-based economic opportunity and exposure to innovation as the study suggests, troubling times may lie ahead.

Asserting that the country’s future competitiveness is linked to a quality education, a recent report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education argues that the completion rate of students pursuing post-secondary education must be increased. The report, The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America, found that while nearly 90 percent of high school graduates expect to enroll in an undergraduate institution at some point, completion rates at those institutions average about 60 percent for students pursuing a bachelor's degree and 30 percent for students pursuing associate's degrees and certificates, with significant disparities within those categories by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. To address the problem, three national priorities are outlined: improving students' educational experience; boosting completion rates and reducing inequities; and controlling costs and ensuring affordability.

Last week, The Digest covered newly released data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science Education Statistics, which found that for the first time in five years, federal funding for higher education research and development increased in both current and constant dollars. For the country as a whole, higher education R&D expenditures increased by roughly 10 percent from FY 2011 to FY 2016, while gross domestic product increased by nearly twice as much. This article examines state-by-state trends in R&D activity at colleges at universities.

The final part of this series explores the tactics and strategies associated with increasing exposure to innovation and broadening economic opportunity.

Last week, The Digest explored recent research examining the role that exposure to innovation plays in determining future inventiveness. The study’s authors, led by Stanford’s Raj Chetty, find that a child’s characteristics at birth – their neighborhood, socioeconomic class, race, and gender – are highly predictive of their propensity to file a patent later on in life. Based on their results, the authors recommend strategies that focus on increasing exposure to innovation and broadening intergenerational economic mobility. This article explores these types of policies in depth, as well as additional tactics that may help reconnect America’s communities with greater economic opportunity.

Due to their positive impact on entrepreneurship (31 percent of VC-backed founders are immigrants) and innovation (76 percent of patents from top 10 U.S. patent-producing universities had at least one foreign-born author) in the United States, many institutions of higher education are working to understand the opportunities, challenges, and gaps that exist in supporting international students from their first year of study through graduation, the job search process, and entry into the labor force. Institutions of higher education are seen as uniquely positioned to enhance international students’ employability as they provide access to work experience as well as cultural acclimation to increase the likelihood those individuals will remain in their host country after graduation.

Estimates indicate that R&D expenditures in the United States reached $510 billion in 2016, marking the first time this total has eclipsed the half-trillion mark, according to recently released National Science Foundation data. The majority of R&D expenditures and performance comes from the private sector. From 2011 to 2016, R&D growth kept pace with the economy as a whole, and R&D intensity – measured as R&D expenditures as a share of gross domestic product – was essentially flat. The analysis finds, though, that federal expenditures on R&D decreased during this period.

Expenditures for R&D from state government agencies increased by 17.3 percent from FY 2011 to FY 2016, reaching $2.3 billion, according to data from the Survey of State Government Research and Development, a survey sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). Nearly two-thirds of this total – 64 percent – came from just five state governments (California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Ohio).

This past summer Ohio joined a growing number of states that allow community colleges to offer four-year degrees when it enacted legislation allowing community colleges, state community colleges, and technical colleges to apply to offer applied bachelor’s degrees. If approved, the programs will join a growing number of applied baccalaureate degree programs being offered by community colleges across the country. The trend has met with resistance from some higher education institutions, while students and employers voice their support.

The executive council of ENDOW, an economic development initiative started by Wyoming governor Matt Mead, has announced its preliminary recommendations to diversify and grow the state’s economy, including statewide programs to support tech-based economic development that total more than $36 million. Notable among the recommendations are $6 million for a proposed Wyoming Research and Innovation Fund that provides matching funds as a way to leverage federal R&D opportunities and $5 million to develop a new organization called Startup:Wyoming, which would administer the Fund and provide support to entrepreneurs throughout the state.

Eligible small businesses who have not previously won an SBIR/STTR award from the NIH are able to apply for help through a pilot initiative, the Applicant Assistance Program (AAP). The primary goal of the AAP is to increase participation in the SBIR program by businesses that are owned or controlled by individuals who are traditionally underrepresented in the biomedical sciences. The pilot is aimed at helping small R&D businesses and individuals successfully apply for Phase I SBIR/STTR funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

A range of equity-based strategies to support scale-up programming for small-scale manufacturers are among the findings of a recent report from the Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA). In Making, Scaling and Inclusion, UMA found that the economic development field is hungry for strategies that remove employment barriers and build the talent of low-income and economically disadvantaged communities to drive economic growth in their cities and the report offers guidance for building equitable innovation economies.