The product of a year-long initiative focused on addressing America’s crumbling infrastructure has been released two months early in an effort to help speed the economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative, called Infrastructure: Foundation for Success, identifies four key federal priorities that should be addressed if America is to rebuild its infrastructure.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is calling on all organizations with an interest in the public face of science to “use the resources at their disposal to support effective science communication and engagement” as part of its third and final installment in a series of reports from an initiative that began in 2016. The Public Face of Science Initiative set out to address the complex and evolving relationship between science and society.

Crystal ball forecasts and predictions are growing about the long term impact of the pandemic on U.S. manufacturing, trade and overall global supply chains. The abruptness of the shutdowns within so many countries’ economies, the resulting scarcities of goods, and millions of furloughs and pink slips has generated cause for economic analysts, policy wonks and consumers to study the effect of disruption on global value chains.

A recent report by the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) found that participation rates in the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs by women-owned small businesses (WOSB) has essentially remained flat since 2011. Although participation rates vary by awarding agency, the report highlights several barriers faced by women entrepreneurs.

Whether or not your state embraced strict measures in an attempt to reduce virus spread, the current pandemic has created the need for reflection and revision of how each of us go about our lives. The same opportunity has arisen for the public and private sectors to rethink how they engage in many core functions.

High-risk/high-reward research can yield breakthroughs, produce new technologies, and allow the surrounding region to remain economically relevant. However, the scientific community remains concerned that research and development-focused policies, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, continue to be conservative with their goals by only encouraging incremental growth that can yield tangible results in shorter amounts of time. These concerns, and potential policy solutions, are explored in a recently published research paper by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The White House has released reviews from the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Defense, and Health and Human Services in response to the president’s Executive Order on “America’s Supply Chains.” Vulnerabilities in supply chains were assessed in four key product areas: semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging; large capacity batteries; critical mineral and materials; and, pharmaceuticals and advanced pharm

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced a new competition for awards to support industry-driven consortia in developing technology roadmaps that will address high-priority research challenges to grow the advanced manufacturing sector in the U.S. and is inviting applications to its Manufacturing USA Technology Roadmap (MfgTech) grants program.

Enrollment in the nation’s institutions of higher education is an important indicator of the knowledge capital available to local innovation economies. This edition of Useful Stats explores enrollment data from the recently updated National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) report , Current Term Enrollment Estimates, covering spring term enrollment trends at degree-granting institutions of higher education.

Regardless of the approach used, the goal of every economic development program in the country is to create economic opportunity within a specific geographic area.

Thirty two industry-led workforce training partnerships from across the country were announced as the grant winners of the $500 million Good Jobs Challenge by the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

The recently published, 2022 edition of New America’s annual survey on American perceptions of higher education, Varying Degrees, includes findings that should be of interest – and potential concern – for the TBED community. The report includes updated findings on American perceptions of the value, funding, accountability, and admissions for higher education and perceptions of current financial security. It also reveals significant differences in perceptions of higher education based on respondents’ political affiliations.

With the fiscal year coming to a close and the U.S. Senate having yet to advance any appropriations bills for the next year, the Senate Democrats have released their proposals for FY 2023 funding levels. Due to the potential for substantial changes when the final FY 2023 budget is passed, this article only covers specific funding levels that are a high priority for the tech-based economic development (TBED) field.

Each summer, the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy distributes a memorandum to all of the executive departments and agencies that are planning to request any research and development funding for a future federal fiscal year that touches on issues or interests that cross multiple agencies. The memo outlines the highest R&D and innovation policy priorities for the administration.

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the appointment of 32 members to the National Advisory Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship (NACIE). Individuals chosen from a pool of more than 260 nominees will be charged with helping to identify and recommend solutions to drive the innovation economy.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont launched the Community Investment Fund 2030 (CIF), a five-year grant program of up to $875 million to foster economic development in historically underserved communities across Connecticut.

From 2005 to 2008, the clean technology industry experienced a venture capital boom where the share of total VC investments in clean energy technologies tripled before falling dramatically. Many studies have concluded that the boom and bust in cleantech as an equity investment focus was because clean energy does not fit the venture capital “model.” A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research explores other possible reasons for the failure of venture capital to remain interested in clean energy.

A recent National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators report on the knowledge- and technology-intensive (KTI) industries analyzed production, trade and enabling technologies of KTI industries and found that KTI industries contributed 11 percent to both U.S. GDP ($2.3 trillion) and global GDP ($9.2 trillion) in 2019. Even though overall U.S.

New modeling techniques and detailed data helped identify locations across the country with the highest potential for distributed wind energy of all forms. The study, which also modeled opportunities for distributed wind in disadvantaged communities and was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, could help communities transition to a clean energy future. Distributed wind energy refers to wind technologies deployed as distributed energy resources.

On the heels of President Biden’s recent announcement of a Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative to boost the United States bioeconomy, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released The Bioeconomy: A Primer, which examines the future of the bioeconomy, explores the United States’ competitiveness in global

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently published statutorily-required five-year inflation adjustments for various limits placed on crowdfunding, and the increases are substantial.

Last week, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released clarifications and a request for information (RFI) related to its $500 million pool for State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) technical assistance.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation (OLDCC) recently announced the six winners under the Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program (DMCSP), with funding of approximately $30 million.

Representing one of the largest investments in the agency’s history,  the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has opened applications for the clean hydrogen hubs (H2Hubs) program.

States with top-ranking university AI research programs garner a greater number of Phase II AI-related SBIR awards, according to a working paper from the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Researchers there investigated state variations in the distribution of Phase II SBIR research projects focused on artificial intelligence (AI). The authors of the paper hypothesized that the state-by-state variations are related to the presence of a research university with a “Top 10” AI program in each state.