In the October 9, 2006 Issue:

Copyright State Science & Technology Institute 2006. 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.

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Louisiana Injects $28.5M for TBED
The Louisiana Recovery Authority and the Louisiana Board of Regents recently unveiled a $28.5 million Research Commercialization and Educational Enhancement Program to stimulate economic development within the portions of the state severely impacted by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Funds for this program originate from the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) appropriated by the federal government.
 
State officials report how Louisiana suffered $400 million in damage to research facilities and infrastructure after the hurricanes. Furthermore, officials report the aggressive recruitment of key research faculty by out-of-state institutions as another threat to future development and economic recovery. While Louisiana had a strong pre-hurricane research capacity, it lacked a coordinated and focused strategy to drive new company creation, market development, and marketing opportunities, according to an action plan developed by the state.
 
The highlights of the RC/EEP program include the following components:

Separately, Louisiana universities are now allowed to invest public funds in private stocks as a result of a recent ballot initiative to amend the state Constitution. Until recently, reinvesting public funds such as profits derived from oil and gas drilling was not permitted by the Constitution. More conservative investment strategies have been traditionally used, such as bonds, which normally produce a lower return on investment than stocks. The revenues generated from these redirected investments will target the establishment of endowed professorships and chairmanships throughout the state.
 
The proposal for the Research Commercialization and Educational Enhancement Program can be found at: http://www.doa.la.gov/cdbg/dr/plans/Amendment%205_higher%20ed.pdf 
 
The original ballot initiative to modify the state Constitution of Louisiana is available at: http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=407051

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SSTI 10th Annual Conference Update
Hotel Sold Out! Conference Registrations Still Available
Early registration has ended and the conference hotel is full, but you still have the opportunity to join representatives from more than 40 states, provinces and three continents at the nations premier gathering of the technology-based economic development field. This is one conference you do not want to miss!

Transforming Regional Economies, SSTI's 10th Annual Conference is only three weeks away. The event, built around 22 timely breakout sessions, engaging plenary sessions, and a gala opening reception, will be held in Oklahoma City on Nov. 1-2, 2006. Four intensive pre-conference options, including a hands-on look at the transformation of Oklahoma City, are offered on Oct. 31.

The Renaissance Hotel graciously expanded SSTI's room block several times before the place was sold out. Don't despair! Rooms are available in two nearby hotels. Both had rooms available as of Oct. 11:

Courtyard Oklahoma City Downtown
2 West Reno Avenue
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102
Phone: (405) 232-2290
Fax: (405) 232-2202
$189/night on http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/OKCDT

Sheraton Oklahoma City Hotel
One North Broadway Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102
Phone: (405) 235-2780
Fax: (405) 232-8752
$179/night on http://www.starwoodhotels.com

More information on SSTI's 10th Annual Conference including an online registration form is available at: http://www.ssti.org/conference06.htm

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Recent Research
Understanding the University Tech Transfer Black Market
An assessment of patent activity for 3,200 faculty who were awarded patents at 54 U.S. research universities concluded that 33 percent were assigned outside of the university and its technology licensing offices (TLOs). Furthermore, 42 percent of the faculty members who were awarded patents from 1989 to 2003 bypassed their university and TLO at least one time to attain a patent.

In their paper, Full-Time Faculty or Part-Time Entrepreneurs?, Gideon Markman of the University of Georgia, Peter Gianiodis of Clemson University, and Phillip Phan of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute investigate the occurrence of university scientists to privately sell or license their discoveries separate from their university's technology licensing program. This is of particular interest to the TBED community because of the fiscal benefits that universities may collect from patent licensing, especially considering that many universities provide equipment, space, and additional infrastructure that is necessary for successful research.
 
The authors created a regression model that accounted for the TLO legal structure and affiliation, the entrepreneurial culture surrounding the scientists, strength of the university's patent portfolio, and the extent of incentive payments by the university for patenting. Their model supports these conclusions:

Because of the tendency for faculty working in locations with a stronger entrepreneurial culture and stronger existing patent portfolio to bypass the institutions technology licensing program, for universities there may be a downside of lost revenues associated with existing knowledge spillovers. The authors remark that producing incentive systems to research scientists, such as increased royalties to both scientists as well as their departments, may encourage patent disclosure with the universities.
 
This study brings up an interesting question: Should universities support traditional TLO programs which may possibly decrease patent behavior and increase revenues, or should universities encourage the involvement of entities outside of the university system to exploit valuable scientific research and increase the local entrepreneurial culture?
 
This paper was recently presented at the Technology Transfer Society Conference held in Atlanta. A copy of the paper, as found at the website for the conference, can be accessed at: http://www.cherry.gatech.edu/t2s2006/papers/markman-1001-T.pdf

Links to the paper and more than 4,000 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers can be found at the Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Resource Center, jointly developed by the Technology Administration and SSTI, at: http://www.tbedresourcecenter.org/.

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NSF Awards $76M for 2006 Science and Technology Centers
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a total of $76 million over the next five years to fund multi-university collaborations to support four cross-disciplinary centers to address fundamental questions in the areas of next-generation polymers, climate modeling, microbial oceanography and coastal environments.

With the new awards, NSF currently supports 17 Science and Technology Centers that involve nearly 100 academic institutions, national laboratories, industrial organizations or other entities. The centers build intellectual and physical infrastructures within and between disciplines, and bring together the creation, integration, and transfer of new knowledge to the mainstream and industrial communities.

Centers offer the research and engineering community an effective mechanism to undertake long-term scientific and technological research and education activities, to explore better and more effective ways to educate students and to develop mechanisms to ensure the timely transition of research and education advances into service in society.

Each center receives roughly $19 million over five years, and if approved, receives an additional five years of support following a thorough evaluation.

The new centers are described below.

The NSF Science and Technology Center for Layered Polymeric Systems, headquartered at Case Western Reserve University, will conduct research at the intersection between the physical sciences and polymer science and engineering. The research will center on a layering process created at Case Western that imparts features on the micro- and nanoscales. The forced-assembly process can combine otherwise incompatible polymers and other materials to produce hierarchical structures.

The center also involves partners at the University of Texas at Austin, Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., the Cleveland Municipal School District, the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Miss., Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind., the State University of New York at Fredonia, the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, N.Y., and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

The NSF Science and Technology Center for Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes, headquartered at Colorado State University, will create improved climate models for more accurately depicting cloud processes and enhancing climate and weather forecasting.

The prototype model allows scientists to take a two-dimensional model of a collection of clouds and apply the behavior of those clouds to each of the thousands of grid columns of a global atmospheric model.

The center also involves partners at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., in addition to other investigators and educators around the country and in Canada, Japan, England and Australia.

Headquartered at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, the NSF Science and Technology Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, will facilitate collaborations among the disparate disciplines of oceanography, microbiology, ecology and genomics.

Researchers will pursue a deeper understanding of the oceans and how they respond to global environmental variability and climate change and the biology, ecology and biogeochemistry of marine microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, single-celled plants and viruses.

The center also involves partners at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oregon State University, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the University of California at Santa Cruz and the Hawai'i Department of Education.

The final new center is the NSF Science and Technology Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction. Headquartered at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, the center will use advances in genomics and proteomics to study coastal margins. Coastal margins comprise less than 20 percent of the contiguous U.S. but support more than half of the U.S. population.

The effort will involve SATURN, a space-age river and ocean observation network that includes boats, buoys, stationary platforms, undersea ocean gliders and even unmanned, bottom-crawling vehicles to continuously collect real-time data on water temperature, salinity, levels of oxygen and organic compounds, presence of microbial communities and other factors.

Scientists will use the data to build computer models and simulations for determining climate change impacts on coastal margins, the roles coastal margins play in the global cycling of environmental carbon, nutrients, gases and other manmade and natural substances, and how far seaward human activities affect ecosystems.

The center also involves partners at the University of Washington, Oregon State University, Portland State University, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Utah.

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Virginia's Strategic Plan Pinpoints Measurable Goals for 2010
The recently released Economic Development Strategic Plan for the Commonwealth of Virginia includes measurable benchmarks to gauge the building blocks for economic development. As required by legislation, each of Virginia's governors must establish an Economic Development Strategic Plan within his first year in office. The 2006 version is the result of collaboration between the cabinet of Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, business leaders, economic development professionals, and private citizens.
 
The report details nine broad goals, which include such topics as: encouraging workforce development, emphasizing regional cooperation, supporting research and development, and strengthening tourism.
 
To accomplish many of these goals, several strategies are listed. Some of these strategies include benchmarks that may be of interest to the tech-based economic development community. By the year 2010, Virginia intends to:

Additional strategies can be found in Virginia's economic development plan, which can be downloaded at http://www.commerce.virginia.gov/EconPlan/EconStratPlan-2006.pdf
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States Increasing STEM Focus: Examples from Minnesota, Missouri
If the most important jobs of the future will be connected to science and engineering disciplines, then, the current thinking goes, the U.S. needs to have more scientists and engineers in its future workforce. To achieve this, more emphasis needs to be placed on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricula, beginning with math and science education in the K-12 experience.

Improving career interest and test scores in math and science is taking on greater priority in a number of states. The Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota High Tech Association, for example, is in the middle of convening a dozen STEM forums around the state in October to explore several strategies for advancing STEM education. Titled Fueling the Pipeline: A Regional Forum for STEM Education, each three-hour meeting is intended to introduce participants to Minnesota's Plan for High School Redesign, hear from STEM local community leaders and engage in conversations to create new partnerships, and establish a pipeline of STEM activities around the state. More information is available at http://www.mhta.org.

STEM advocates in Missouri have taken a different tact. Recently, members of Missouri's METS (Math, Engineering, Technology, and Science) Alliance met with Gov. Matt Blunt to present and discuss strategies to enhance math and science education in K-12 schools and the states public universities. The Alliance, a group of 20 educators, government officials, and industry representatives, was convened in April by the governor to continue the work done by the Math and Science Summit over the previous year. In late August 2006, the group submitted an action plan that would address Missouri's lagging performance in recent assessments of student knowledge in math and science.

Last year, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute gave the state an F for its math curriculum standards, calling it unclear and non-challenging. The Institutes 2005 State of State Math Standards survey reported that the Missouri grade-level expectations lag behind those of the better state standards by a year or more. The report for all 50 states is available at: http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=338

The METS Alliance plan addresses five major goals to remedy this situation and increase the competitiveness of the states high-tech workforce, calling for the state to take the following specific actions:

More information is available at http://gov.mo.gov/mets.

Additional Resource on State STEM Initiatives
The work being done by the METS Alliance is one of many examples of state STEM initiatives described in a September 2006 report from the Education Commission of the States. The report notes that the growing number of councils and commissions working on similar plans reveals that states are becoming increasingly aware of the need to compete nationally and globally for high-tech business by skilled math and science workforce. Access the ECS report at: http://www.ecs.org/html/Document.asp?chouseid=7072

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R&D's Direct Role in GDP Increasing
According to a recently released report by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), investment in research and development accounted for 4.5 percent of the growth of inflation-adjusted U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) between 1959 and 2002. This value has increased in recent years, with R&D contributing to 6.5 percent of GDP growth from 1995 to 2002.
 
These statistics are a result of a recent effort to chart how intangible assets, which are not normally used in GDP calculations, affect economic growth. According to BEA Director Steve Landefeld, some 40 percent of U.S. productivity and growth is unaccounted for in the annual GDP calculations. Research and development is one of those intangible assets that are not currently incorporated in BEA calculations.
 
With the assistance of the National Science Foundation, R&D expenditure data was collected and then used to create separate estimates to calculate these economic measurements. Besides the contributions to GDP, the estimates stated that if R&D was included as an investment and not as an expense, business investment would be 11 percent higher and the national savings rate would be 2 percent higher.
 
These new estimates performed by the BEA only include the direct impact of R&D within the industries that conducted the R&D. They do not include productivity gains in sectors that are the result of R&D from separate sectors. For example, productivity gains in the banking industry resulting from research in the computer industry were not included in these R&D estimates. This report is part of a multi-year effort by the BEA to better measure these intangible assets. This recent research is part of an ongoing econometric analysis, and R&D values may not be officially incorporated into GDP calculations until 2013.
 
Press release from the NSF about the program:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108067&org=SBE&from=news
 
The BEA/NSF paper, R&D Satellite Account: Preliminary Estimates, is available at: http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrelarchive/2006/rdreport06.pdf

Links to this paper and more than 4,000 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers can be found at the Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Resource Center, jointly developed by the Technology Administration and SSTI, at: http://www.tbedresourcecenter.org/.

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