The Department of Labor recently announced awards totaling $183.8 million in Scaling Apprenticeships Through Sector-Based Strategies grants. Funded through H-1B visa fees, the grants will support the training of more than 85,000 apprentices. The grantees include 23 academic institutions and grant-matching industry consortia representing 18 states, and includes three SSTI members — the University of Cincinnati, Lorain County Community College and the State University of New York Research Foundation.

A recent report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) details the changes in manufacturing’s geographic concentration across the country between 1940 and 2016. Manufacturing was the largest source of employment in 15 states in 1940, concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest, and had grown to the largest source of employment in 18 states by 2000, concentrated in the Southeast and central states.

Several mega-deal IPOs, including Uber, Zoom and Pinterest, and strong merger and acquisition activity, combined to create a record-setting $188.5 billion in venture-backed exit value for the first half of 2019, according to VentureMonitor, the quarterly report on venture capital investment compiled by the National Venture Capital Association and PitchBook. According to the report, the six-month total for 2019 has already topped the full-year total for all prior years.

A recent paper published by SSRN provides a detailed look at the relationship between financial incentives and state fiscal health. The authors control for many potentially-related factors and still find significant, negative impacts of incentives. While the study helps fuel calls for critical analysis and careful implementation of tax incentives, the results may not be as clear cut as some coverage may suggest.

The New Mexico Economic Development Department is launching a new grant program to facilitate the transfer and commercialization of technologies developed in New Mexico national labs and universities to business startups. The New Mexico Technology Transfer Assistance Grants (NM-TAG) are designed to help offset the risk associated with licensing new technologies and assist the transfer and deployment of new innovative technologies.

For passive control of tidal electricity systems, permeable courtyard tiles, and fog water collection units, three winning teams of middle school and high school innovators looked to cucumber seeds, plants from the yam family and Namib beetles, respectively.  The three projects were among the six selected for recognition out of 78 participating in the 2019 Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge.  Biomimicry approaches sustainable innovation by looking first to nature to find proven competencies — patterns and strategies in the systems vernacular — for dealing with similar c

A new program designed to support additive manufacturing (AM) technology insertion into the existing U.S. Army supply chain could also grow the southwestern Pennsylvania manufacturing sector. Catalyst Connection, in partnership with the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) and America Makes, launched AMNOW, a potentially multi-phase, multi-year contract funded by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) under the U.S. Army Futures Command.

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) plans to launch a seed fund to support the development of life sciences startups outside of the Greater Boston area. These areas, many already rich in major research university and medical center anchor institutions, should be bolstered by this early-stage funding currently concentrated in Boston.

While higher education remains a viable path to economic advancement, adults without a postsecondary degree are increasingly benefitting from non-degree certificates and certifications, according to a recent report. As automation and technological advances demand more skills from workers in the changing economy, Strada Education Network and Lumina Foundation partnered to determine the value and impact of the growing number of non-degree credentials.

After 18 months, some communities are starting to see Opportunity Zones (OZ) investments. LISC, a community development entity with a long track record of project finance, has published a new guide to help communities plan to capitalize on the investment. These activities remain heavily focused on real estate projects but may still be informative for groups looking to bolster their regional innovation economy.

Are you looking to increase the success rate of your state’s SBIR/STTR proposals? If so, a reminder that applications for the Small Business Administration’s Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program are due next Friday, June 28, at 4 p.m. EDT. This program provides one-year funding to organizations executing programs related to SBIR/STTR outreach, technical assistance, or financial support.

Founded in 2015, venture-backed aerospace firm, Relativity Space, is poised to disrupt the rocket manufacturing and launch markets as it secures long-term contracts at NASA’s Stennis and Kennedy Space Centers. Relativity is reimagining the process to iterate and scale rockets quickly, relying on its revolutionary “Stargate” metal 3D printer and new autonomous facilities to build and launch rockets in days rather than years.

Last week, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced plans to relocate nearly 550 USDA scientist positions from the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to the Kansas City metropolitan area. Originally announced in August 2018, the planned relocation of scientists within the USDA Economic Research Service, a statistical agency, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, has gained widespread attention.

Manufacturing growth is helping fuel one of the longest expansions in the U.S., steadily adding jobs since 2010, according to Economic Innovation Group’s (EIG) recent data brief, Manufacturing’s Real But Patchwork Rebound. While manufacturing job growth has risen over the past two years, the report notes that its growth was broad but uneven.

Two recent executive orders issued by the White House have met with mixed reactions. While one order intended to ease the regulatory process for certain biotech products was met with favor by some in that industry, another order that could eliminate at least one third of the current federal advisory committees that was issued just days later, was roundly criticized.

Funds for entrepreneurial training, technical assistance with R&D, and matching grants for innovative small businesses are among the items now part of Minnesota’s economic development toolkit thanks to new funding in the state’s recently signed FY 2020 biennial budget. Under the approved budget, Launch Minnesota will receive $2.5 million in each of the next two fiscal years to support innovation and entrepreneurship. Originally called the Minnesota Innovation Collaborative in Gov.

New data analyzing the first cohort of Tennessee Promise students reveals a higher graduation rate and increased number of students earning a college credential when compared to the previous year’s non-Promise cohort. The inaugural class of Tennessee Promise students graduated from high school in 2015 and completed their five semesters of eligibility in December.

Venture development organizations (VDO), nonprofit organizations across the country investing in innovation startups to help grow their regional economies as well as earn a respectable return, saw at least 20 exits in the first quarter of 2018, based on data entered on Pitchbook.com. Here are some examples from the quarter:

For the economic development community as a whole, the issue of retaining and attracting talent is of the utmost importance. While a visualization in a Wall Street Journal article looks at where graduates move after college, an interactive analysis by the Pew Research Center examines where foreign student graduates work in the United States.

The federal government’s priorities for funding research and development do not necessarily match those of the general public, an analysis of ScienceCounts and National Science Foundation data suggests. ScienceCounts is a national nonprofit with the objective of enhancing the public's awareness of, and support for, federally-funded scientific research.

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program dubs itself as “America’s largest seed fund.” Three recent research articles add to the existing literature on the program. First, a study finds that SBIR supports high-risk efforts to convert R&D. A second study suggests that SBIR awardees are more likely to locate in denser regions but in less dense neighborhoods in those regions. A third study finds that SBIR awardees from federal agencies with more diverse workforces tend to perform better.

Taking a deeper dive into R&D expenditures at U.S. institutions of higher education, this week’s edition of Useful Stats examines the fields in which this R&D was performed at the metropolitan level in 2018.

The Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) released a report detailing the benefits, obstacles and importance of working with under-resourced communities to facilitate access to solar energy. The report, Solar with Justice, provides a detailed set of recommendations for successfully providing solar technology to low- and moderate-income areas.

Voters on both coasts may be asked to approve funding this year to help combat the challenges of climate change. Governors in both New York and California are proposing measures to tackle environmental issues, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo launching a “Restore Mother Nature Act,” which his office is calling the nation’s most aggressive program for habitat restoration and flood reduction, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a climate budget that would invest $12.5 billion over the next five years.

Governors are continuing to roll out their state of the state addresses and this week’s SSTI review highlights differences in the states economies: while Arizona is enjoying population growth Vermont is struggling to attract workers. More states are focusing proposals on climate change and clean energy initiatives, with New York proposing a $3 billion bond initiative to build resiliency, and Colorado, New Jersey and Vermont proposing clean energy and climate initiatives as well.  Rural broadband, higher education and workforce initiatives also are throughout the state addresses.