SSTI's Tech Talkin' Govs series has returned as governors across the country formally convene 2015 legislative sessions. The series highlights new and expanded TBED proposals from governors' State of the State, Budget and Inaugural addresses.

This week, governors in Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Texas revealed their budget proposals, with commonalities around STEM education, workforce development, and university research initiatives. Governors in two states, New Hampshire and Texas, made growth in the innovation economy a specific priority area of their proposed budgets.

The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) is a new research facility for scientists and engineers from Fermilab, Argonne, and Illinois universities to work alongside industrial partners to develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and apply them to areas such as computing, health, indus

Even after equity crowdfunding reached a milestone earlier this month with new Securities Exchange Commission proposed rule changes, state legislatures across the country continue to pass intrastate crowdfunding bills.

The Delta Regional Authority (DRA) announced the establishment of a consortium for research and innovation that is intended to have a long-term positive economic impact on the region. The 35-member consortium will be comprised of universities and other private and public institutions in eight states – Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.

The Delta Regional Authority  (DRA) released the Regional Development Plan III (RDPIII) – an economic development strategy to help guide DRA’s 252-county region’s economic growth over the next five years. In RDPIII, DRA identifies three goals and related action items to guide its economic development efforts in the Delta region:

This week, leaders in Illinois and New Mexico announced new investments to help seed and early stage technology startups access equity capital. The Illinois Treasurer will launch the Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, which would invest $220 million over the next three years in 15-20 funds across the state. No more than 15 percent of the money will be placed with any particular fund. The state’s investment will target emerging tech companies, beginning later this quarter.

At his State of the State address last week, Gov. Bruce Rauner announced that Illinois’ principal economic development organization, the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, as well as some of the state’s business leaders will collaborate to organize a newly formed private, nonprofit organization exclusively focused on increasing Illinois’ competitiveness for job creation and investment.

Illinois and Michigan are among the few states that support regular comprehensive examinations of the role higher education plays in the overall innovation economy. Organizations in both states recently completed studies on university-generated entrepreneurship, licensing, investment and employment, finding a steady rise in university economic impact over the past five years.  In both cases, the increase in university impact was linked to an expanding university role in supporting entrepreneurs and researchers.

Building stronger connections between universities and businesses in key industries could help generate new jobs, startups and technologies, according to an S&T roadmap released by the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC). ISTC notes that the division between the state’s research universities and companies has limited Illinois’ competitiveness, despite its high overall level of innovative activity.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a coalition of Chicago organizations and private businesses have announced plans to place at least 1,000 workers in manufacturing jobs. The mayor’s 2015 budget proposal, presented this week, includes $200,000 for the effort, with another $750,000 in funds and in-kind contributions from partners. Recent growth in the region’s manufacturing sector has created an urgent need for workers with specific training and apprenticeships, according to the mayor’s announcement.

With Gov. Pat Quinn, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Sen.

Governors around the country continue to lay out priorities for the next legislative session. In the coming weeks, SSTI will review gubernatorial addresses and budget proposals related to economic development. This week, we highlight developments in Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey.

Breaking a two-year impasse, legislators in Illinois were able to pass a state budget that reinstitutes an R&D tax credit and implements workforce development programs. In California, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (Go-Biz) will see a 28 percent increase in funding, while other innovation initiative are receiving level funding. In other states whose budgets SSTI analyzed this week for TBED-related funding, we found that Innovate Mississippi was able to maintain state funding and new funding was appropriated for workforce development at the state’s community and junior colleges; a variety of programs were cut in North Carolina; and, Ohio will not get funding for a state office focused on commercializing research across key industries that the governor had proposed. More findings from California, Illinois, Mississippi, North Carolina and Ohio are detailed below.