This week's Funding Supplement will be sent on Thursday, June 29. With the Fourth of July holiday, neither the SSTI Weekly Digest or Funding Supplement will be published next week.

As the authors of the recent Swedish report, The Internationalization of Corporate R&D, pointed out, industrial R&D may increasingly be found concentrated around public and private research institutions with strong research capabilities related to the specific corporation's interests.

While visions of sugarplums will be dancing in the heads of most Americans, SSTI's staff will be boxing up its files and moving to new offices on Dec. 20-21.

Due to the move and because SSTI will be closed during the week of December 24-28, the next issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest and the funding supplement will be published January 4, 2002.

Due to the Christmas and New Year's Day holidays, the next issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest will be published during the week of Jan. 8, 2007. Publication of the Funding Supplement also will resume in January, following this week's issue (Dec. 18, due out by Thursday).

The 82nd Annual Congress of Cities in Charlotte, N.C., elected Jim Hunt, a councilmember of Clarksburg, W.Va., as the new president of the National League of Cities. Hunt follows Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony A. Williams.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels named Mitch Maurer, president of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), as the new state secretary of commerce. Maurer replaces Pat Miller, who stepped down to resume her role as president and CEO of her company, Vera Bradley Designs, Inc.

While Indiana has demonstrated strong competitiveness in industry and university R&D and performed well in entrepreneurial programs, the state lags most of its regional competitors and many of the 50 states in terms of production of new innovation workers and educational attainment, says a new report from Techpoint and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

Steven Weathers is the new president and CEO of the Regional Growth Partnership in Toledo, Ohio.

During his presentation of the fiscal year 2009-11 budget last week, Gov. Mitch Daniels said the state's weakening economy will require the suspension of funds for some initiatives supported by his administration.

Since the SSTI Funding Supplement became a members-only publication in 2006 more than 4,250 funding opportunities have been distributed. In 2008 only, there were more than 1,400 different opportunities for your client companies and university research faculties to secure funding -- if you were an SSTI member. Competition for federal research funding is growing, particularly as program budgets have been relatively flat or declining in recent federal budget cycles.

For several years governors across the country have announced life science and biotech initiatives that are as broad as they are large. The devil is in the details, and in most cases related to bio-based economic development, so are the opportunities.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

Due to overwhelming interest, SSTI's first poster session, held at SSTI's 12th Annual Conference in Cleveland mid October, is now available online 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. You can view more than 35 posters celebrating why states, regions, universities and related organizations engage in technology-based economic development (TBED).

Today's Digest marks SSTI's 600th issue. The Digest's growth in circulation and coverage over the past 13 years parallels the explosive expansion of activities to strengthen regional economies through technology-based economic development. From its humble beginnings as a two-page fax sent out to 50 people on Friday March 1, 1996, to its current world-crossing circulation now in the thousands, the Digest remains committed to delivering timely information that will help state, local and university TBED practitioners succeed.

More than 50 research funding opportunities totaling more than $100 million were sent to SSTI Members this week in SSTI's Funding Supplement. This members-only electronic publication provides readers with application information, eligibility criteria and submission deadlines for hundreds of research and economic development funding opportunities offered by the federal government and others.

The following overview is a synopsis of select recent announcements from research parks across the nation, including groundbreakings and development plans to support vibrant regional economies based on science, technology and innovation.