In the September 19, 2003 Issue:

Copyright State Science & Technology Institute 2003. Information in this issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest was prepared under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration. Redistribution to all others interested in tech-based economic development is strongly encouraged — please cite the State Science & Technology Institute whenever portions are reproduced or redirected. Any opinions expressed in the Digest do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

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Wisc. Governor Unveils Plan to Grow State's Economy
Gov. Jim Doyle last week unveiled his plan to jumpstart the Wisconsin economy. The plan, "Grow Wisconsin," calls for a series of executive actions, private sector partnerships and legislative steps to create high-wage jobs and achieve other goals. Some of the tech-based economic development items outlined in "Grow Wisconsin" are:

In addition, Gov. Doyle is calling for the foundation that received millions from the sale of Cobalt Corp., parent of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan in Wisconsin, to deploy at least $100 million for biomedical and life science research. The "Grow Wisconsin" initiative is available in its entirety at: http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/

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Mass. Governor Lays Out $125M Jobs Bill
Gov. Mitt Romney outlined a legislative package on Monday totaling $125 million designed to create more jobs. Many elements of the package target the science and technology communities.

Romney laid out the details of the jobs bill in a series of meetings with key business, labor and academic leaders, and with members of his Regional Competitiveness Councils, which are all-volunteer boards that guide economic development in different areas of the state.

The legislation – to be filed once final input is received – is focused on expanding key businesses, training workers and developing more housing and commercial space. The bill's $125 million price tag is spread over three years. An estimated $50 million of it would be funded by instituting a change that conforms the state’s tax refund practices to Internal Revenue Service time limits. The remainder would be paid for through self-funding mechanisms or non-General Fund sources.

Highlights of the bill include:

Gov. Romney said the bill builds on Massachusetts' strengths by providing incentives to move jobs from the laboratory to manufacturing facilities. Under the proposed tax rebate, eligible manufacturing companies in the biotech, life sciences and medical devices field that create at least 25 new jobs will be entitled to a rebate equal to 50 percent of the state income tax paid to the state for each new employee of the company.

Earlier this year, Gov. Romney launched his “Jobs First” campaign, which consisted of a number of initiatives aimed at job growth and economic development and included the creation of the Regional Competitiveness Councils (see the Feb. 21, 2003 issue of the Digest). More details on the governor's proposal is available at: http://www.mass.gov/portal/index.jsp?pageID=aghome&agid=gov

The state legislature is currently considering an alternative $110 million economic development package introduced by the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives over the summer (see the July 11, 2003 issue of the Digest).

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Study Highlights Nebraska’s Position in S&T
Investments in science and technology (S&T) – from higher education to industry research and development (R&D) – are the decisive factors in creating a sustainable economic future, a new study finds.

The report compares Nebraska with its regional peers and its position relative to national leaders using the Milken Institute’s Technology and Science Index. Seventy-seven indicators in five categories – R&D inputs, risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, human capital investment, technology and science workforce, and technology concentration and dynamism – are used to measure how well Nebraska will perform in a knowledge-based economy. Individual indicators include a variety of measurements such as the percentage of a state’s population with Ph.D.s, R&D expenditures per capita and venture capital investment.

Nebraska’s best performance was in the study's Research and Development Composite Index, where the state had strong positions in industry R&D, academic R&D, life sciences R&D and agriculture R&D, and in the Technology and Science Workforce Composite Index, ranking 11th nationally and first among the West North Central states. Nebraska also demonstrated exceptionally strong growth in venture capital funding, increasing at a rate of slightly more than 100 percent in the past year.

However, Nebraska’s middle-of-the-road rankings in the remaining three indices place the state almost dead-center nationally, according to the study.

“Focus must be placed on improving commercialization rates out of universities and adjusting the rewards to encourage entrepreneurial activities,” the report states. Nebraska’s S&T workforce, it adds, could be better leveraged in starting tech firms.

In conducting the research, Milken Institute economists found a strong connection between S&T investment and personal income gains, as well as overall state economic growth. A region’s economic prosperity is based upon its ability to attract and expand S&T assets, then leverage them for economic development, the report concludes.

“More than three-fourths of personal income growth can be tied to increases in technology output,” says Ross DeVol, Director of Regional Economics for Milken. “States succeeding in technology-based growth will push income per capita higher.”

The Nebraska study is available at http://www.milkeninstitute.org/.

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NIST Releases Guide for Economic Impact Analysis of R&D
Gaining an understanding of the real and potential economic impact of government investments in research and development (R&D) has suffered for decades from a lack of rigorous but broadly applicable methodologies for the assessment. To advance the field toward a more appropriate degree of uniformity, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently released a primer on economic impact analysis of government R&D programs.

Methods for Assessing the Economic Impacts of Government R&D, written by NIST Senior Economist Gregory Tassey, touches on all aspects from metrics to methodology to reasons why these studies are imperative. Tassey also presents guidelines for interpreting the qualitative and quantitative results of various approaches.

Increasing global competition and increased efforts in the 1990s toward greater efficiency in government has boosted pressure on federal agencies to conduct economic impact assessments, according to the report. These pressures are relatively new and the majority of agencies have not obtained the internal means to select proper metrics, data sources and analytical methods. Agencies also have struggled in selecting contractors outside of the agency with the skills necessary to perform such assessments, the report argues. As a result, the need for proper impact assessment is often lost, as most R&D agencies are managed by technically trained individuals unfamiliar with tools for economic assessment and uncomfortable using and interpreting data produced by a field of study in which they are not trained.

Tassey presents three reasons for conducting economic impact studies of government research programs:

With so many different programs needing evaluation, a single manual is difficult to produce as each program may require a different method or metric, Tassey states. However, certain methodological elements are common to all economic impact assessments, including:

Methods for Assessing the Economic Impacts of Government R&D provides overall guidelines for assessing the economic impacts of technology research programs. It also provides a review of alternative analytical frameworks, data collection strategies, metrics and impact measures. The report can be downloaded at: http://www.nist.gov/director/prog-ofc/report03-1.pdf

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Useful Stats: Public High School Graduation Rates by State
An educated workforce is one of the elements required for a knowledge economy, but not all of the critical jobs require a Ph.D. or even a B.A. Few would dispute, though, the importance of successfully completing high school.

With a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute has prepared a report entitled Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States. The report includes several tables presenting the high school graduation rates by state and race. Overall, 10 states had graduation rates above 80 percent (shown in parentheses): North Dakota (89), Utah (87), Iowa (85), South Dakota (85), West Virginia (84), Nebraska (84), New Jersey (84), Wisconsin (81), Montana (81), and Idaho (81).

The center also computed the percentage of students graduating with college-ready transcripts, using three screens to calculate the minimum requirements necessary to enroll in the average four-year college. The results are presented in Appendix Table 9.

[Editor's Note: The method employed to calculate college readiness and the resulting statistics overlook the important role community colleges and technical schools play in preparing a competitive workforce. Every job does not require a degree from a four-year school. Conversely, a university degree (or higher) does not prepare a person for every required job.

In addition, the authors state they "have no reason to believe that levels of college readiness had changed dramatically" from 1998 to 2001. SSTI wonders if that assumption is safe given the wealth generated and attention given to science and tech fields during the period, most notably in the biotech, information technology and telecommunications sectors.]

Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States is available for download at: http://www.miedresearchoffice.org/

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SSTI's Intro to TBED Preconference Workshop Sold Out
Seats Available for Developing Angel Organizations, Financing TBED Workshops
Despite increasing the number of seats available by nearly 50 percent, SSTI is forced to close registration for the full-day preconference workshop, An Introduction to Tech-based Economic Development. Because of the workshop's interactive design, attendance is always capped for this perennial favorite. SSTI will maintain a short waiting list (via the online registration form) in the event of any cancellations. Only people registered for the full conference on October 21-22 will be accepted on the waiting list for the pre-conference session.

The remaining two preconference offerings are designed to accommodate larger audiences so seats remain available in each.

SSTI preconference workshops are developed to provide more intensive consideration of a particular topic or issue than can be afforded in the full conference. This year, SSTI examines two timely and critical issues of importance to the technology-based economic development (TBED) community — developing local angel networks and financing TBED in times of economic uncertainty.

Developing Angel Organizations: A Practical Guide
Angel investors, often receiving little press, have provided significant financing of entrepreneurial companies. Experts estimate that, on a cumulative basis, angel investments have been double that of venture capital over the last 30 years. Angels also are financing start-up and early-stage businesses, filling a void left by venture capitalists. In short, angels recognize opportunity exists even in a risk-averse market and are putting up their money as proof, but can they be found or nurtured just anywhere?

Presented by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, this half-day workshop will focus on the development of angel organizations, including a step-by-step process for determining whether or not your community can support an angel organization and, if it can, the organizational type and structure that is right for the involved investors and your community. ($75 registration fee; held the afternoon of Oct. 20, 1:00 - 4:30 pm)

Financing TBED: New Times, New Strategies
What alternate sources of funding are best? Earmarks? Foundations? EDA funds? Private contributions? Should you privatize? Where do you start?

It can all be a bit intimidating, but after too many rounds of across-the-board cuts, your program's effectiveness could start to bleed. In this intensive full-day session, we'll look at the pros and cons, dos and don'ts, nuances and intricacies of incorporating non-state and alternative state finances into your TBED funding portfolio. We'll draw on the expertise of foundation leaders who have put millions into TBED programs, organizations that can tell the story of securing Congressional earmarks, a lobbyist disclosing how to work with and win over elected officials, and an EDA insider and EDA grant recipients on the process for gaining EDA funding.

Perhaps your TBED program will be one of the lucky ones that escapes the double impact of record federal deficits and the bleak forecast for the states' 2004 fiscal situation. A safer bet is, given the continuing fiscal crisis, if your TBED effort isn't exploring alternate sources of funding, it will be soon. ($175 registration fee; full day, including lunch on Oct. 20, 9:00 - 4:30 pm)

All three preconference workshops will be held Monday, October 20 at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront. SSTI's annual conference will begin the next day at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center across the street. More information, including the registration form, is available at: http://www.ssti.org/conference03.htm [expired]

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People

Randy Burge has announced his resignation as director of the New Mexico Department of Economic Development's Office of Science and Technology. Mike Orshan will serve as acting director beginning Sept. 29.

Donald Jakeway will be the new president and CEO for the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Joseph James is the new chief operating officer for the South Carolina Department of Commerce.

The Florida Venture Forum named Robin Kovaleski as the first executive director for the organization.

Former U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella has been sworn in as the US Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

SSTI extends its sympathies to the family of Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannon. During his interrupted term in office, Gov. O'Bannon proved to be a strong friend of tech-based economic development efforts in the state.

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