In the March 12, 2007 Issue:

Copyright State Science & Technology Institute 2007. 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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Illinois Governor Proposes $100M to Improve Capital Access
In his recent combined State of the State and budget address on March 7, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich proposed the formation of the Illinois Community Assets Fund (ICAF), a $100 million venture designed to increase access to capital and financing to economically distressed communities and populations that have had inadequate access to mainstream capital markets within the state. The assets of ICAF would be contained within the State Treasury, and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) would administer the fund. All $100 million would be distributed within a three-year period.
 
The ICAF would consist of the following four programs:

On Feb. 27 of this year, HB3676 was introduced to the 95th General Assembly of Illinois and currently is assigned to the House’s International Trade & Commerce Committee. The next hearing on the bill will take place this week at the State Capitol.
 
If you would like to track the status of HB3676, visit:
http://ilga.gov/legislation/
 
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s FY 2008 proposal for Illinois’ Capital Budget can be found at:
http://www2.state.il.us/budget/FY08%20Capital%20Budget.pdf

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Tennessee Governor Requests Funding for TBED, Alternative Fuels in Next Budget
Gov. Phil Bredesen’s budget proposal for 2007-2008 includes more than $100 million in new funding for several new education and high-tech development initiatives and a strategy to spur the state’s alternative fuels industry.
 
In his annual State of the State Address, the governor emphasized the need for major changes in the state’s educational system. In addition to augmenting state funding for pre-K programs, teacher salary increases and assistance for at-risk students, Gov. Bredesen’s budget calls for a massive initiative to improve the state’s flagging graduation rates and low higher ed enrollments. His plan calls for the creation of five-year high school programs that would coordinate with local community colleges to offer associate’s degrees to participating students. Students who do not participate in these programs, but demonstrate a reasonable level of college readiness, would be able to attend a community college after high school without paying tuition.
 
The budget provides $45.1 million for Gov. Bredesen’s “Next Step Jobs” strategy, announced in September 2006. The four-part strategy would support business and research across the state, particularly in high-tech industries. Some of the measures of interest to the TBED community include:

The proposed budget also would dedicate $72.6 million to the governor’s Alternative Fuels Initiative to catalyze the state’s ethanol industry. A new $40 million pilot ethanol plant in the Oak Ridge-Knoxville region is the centerpiece of the state’s effort, which will focus on developing affordable methods of producing and distributing biomass-based fuels. The state would provide $11.6 million to continue the construction of the Joint Institute for Biological Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Institute, scheduled for completion in August, would help Tennessee compete for one of the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Research Centers (see the Aug. 14, 2006 issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest).
 
Other alternative energy initiatives in the budget include:

Read Gov. Bredesen’s proposed budget at: http://www.tennesseeanytime.org/govfiles/0708StateBudget.pdf

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Must Read: Chapter 3 of the 2007 State New Economy Index
A short five years in the waiting, but a whole global economic upheaval later, the 2007 edition of the seminal State New Economy Index shows the extent to which each state is adapting to the maturation of the knowledge-based economy. Digest readers will have seen some of the many articles from around the country covering the report’s recent release. Few of those press accounts explored the recommendations embodied in the third chapter, focusing instead on the rankings of their individual states. The report’s importance, however, lies in its call for structural change in most of the institutions we take for granted today.
 
As the 2007 Index concludes, “Success in the new economy requires that a whole array of institutions – universities, school boards, firms, local governments, and economic development agencies – work in new and often uncomfortable ways.”
 
While the earlier editions of the State New Economy Index (1999 and 2002) originated in the Progressive Policy Institute, the latest addition was financed by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and prepared by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). The common factor remains the index’s primary author and creator, Robert Atkinson. Atkinson has served in many roles with several different perspectives of the national innovation system, including running a state’s TBED effort and working for the federal government’s key technology agency. His present project is the founding of ITIF, a nonprofit, non-partisan public policy think tank committed to articulating and advancing a pro-productivity, pro-innovation and pro-technology public policy agenda internationally, in Washington and the states.
 
Most TBED efforts should applaud the directives contained in the third chapter of the index. Cautious humility is advised, however – particularly in those states that have invested hundreds of millions during the past five years into R&D, entrepreneurship, or capital access programs while their rankings for the dozens of indicators in the Index continue to slide downward. In those states, the index may help provide a much needed change of course for more effective TBED strategies. Recommendations include:
 
Align Incentives behind Innovation Economy Fundamentals

Co-Invest in an Infrastructure for Innovation Co-invest in the Skills of the Workforce Cultivate Entrepreneurship Support Industry Clusters Reduce Business Costs without Reducing the Standard of Living Help Boost Productivity Reorganize Economic Development Efforts Enlist Federal Help

Atkinson’s rationale is provided for each recommendation, many of which include examples of state or local efforts to address the issues raised. And, while not exhaustive of the fundamental changes needed, the 2007 State New Economy Index provides a good list of some of the most important challenges ahead.
 
The report is available at http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=30.

Links to the index and more than 4,500 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers also 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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Study Calls for Critical Boost in U.S. Degree Attainment Levels
The U.S. needs to increase the number of people receiving a bachelor’s or associate degree by 37 percent over current attainment levels if it desires to have 55 percent of the adult population with a college degree by the year 2025, Jobs for the Future reports. In Hitting Home: Quality, Cost, and Access Challenges Confronting Higher Education Today, the nonprofit organization predicts 55 percent will be the level of degree attainment for some of the top performing OECD countries in 2025. To remain competitive, the U.S. must use this figure as a target.
 
By utilizing reports from a variety of sources, the study illustrates the increasing demand for a highly educated workforce in the future, and how other countries around the world are rapidly increasing the segment of their populations who are obtaining associate and bachelor degrees. In 2005, this percentage in America was 37.4 percent, ranking the U.S. eighth behind Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Norway, South Korea and Sweden (OECD, Education at a Glance 2006). Even though comparing countries may be difficult because of differences between countries’ demographics and differences between countries’ education systems, the U.S. may continue to experience difficulties in raising levels of degree attainment because of the rising costs of education, especially when indexed to inflation. Hitting Home uses fluctuating demographic trends between racial categories, each have varying degree attainment levels, to comment future growth will be more difficult unless these attainment levels change.
 
The study contends that state policymakers and education officials need to fix the problems of access, quality and productivity in higher education. It provides the flowing recommendations:

Some efforts to reach these goals by individual states are further explained in the study. For example, Florida enables most graduates of community colleges within the state to automatically meet all general education requirements and guarantees admission at the junior level for these graduates at universities in the state. In California, the 11th grade standards test provides students an early glimpse at their preparedness for university instruction. New York’s Bundy Aid program provides rewards to private institutions that graduate residents from the state of New York. Finally, a pilot study by the National Center for Academic Transformation found that incorporating technology and utilizing professors as tutors, rather than lecturers, reduced cost and increased learning outcomes.
 
Hitting Home is part of a multiyear initiative funded by the Lumina Foundation for Education called the Making Opportunity Affordable project. The study is available at:
http://www.jff.org/download.php?file=HittingHome.pdf&KC_PubID=335

Links to the study and more than 4,500 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers also 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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More Female Students Pursuing Science and Engineering Degrees, NSF Report Shows
The American science and technology workforce is undergoing a major demographic shift. A report issued last week by the National Science Foundation shows that more women are participating in university science and engineering (S&E) programs than ever before. The biannual NSF report, entitled Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities in Science and Engineering, provides a broad overview of demographic trends within university S&E programs. In 2007, the report's overriding theme is that although U.S. science and technology fields remain predominantly male, trends at the university-level indicate this may be changing.
 
Female college enrollment in all fields began to exceed male enrollment in the late 1980s. However, women and men did not participate in S&E programs in equal numbers until 2000, according to NSF figures. As of 2004, women receive slightly more than half (50.7 percent) of all bachelor’s degrees in S&E fields. Women also have begun to close the gap in master’s programs – they now receive 44 percent of all S&E master’s degrees, up from 34 percent in 1990. During that same period, the number of male recipients remained fairly steady.
 
Male students are, however, still more likely to receive doctoral S&E degrees than their female counterparts. Though the number of men receiving S&E doctoral degrees has dropped more than 25 percent over the past 10 years, women still receive only 44 percent of those degrees. Also, the increasing presence of female students has not been equally distributed among S&E majors. Certain S&E fields, including computer science, remain predominantly male. In fact, in recent years, the gap between women and men recipients of bachelor’s degrees in the computer sciences has grown. Between 1985 and 2004, the female share of computer science degrees dropped from 37 percent to 25 percent.
 
Female scientists and engineers also appear to be underrepresented in the workforce and in professional circles – almost three times as many men were employed in S&E occupations in 2003 as women. Men also earn much more than women doing S&E work. The average annual salary for male S&E professionals of all ages and educational backgrounds is $70,000, while the average for women is $49,000. Female S&E professionals in supervisory positions have an average of nine subordinates, while male supervisors have an average of 12.
 
The demographic shift among younger graduates may represent an opportunity for regions anxious to attract S&E professionals. By providing networking opportunities and resources for female scientists, engineering and technology entrepreneurs, cities and states may be able to create an attractive environment for a growing group that continues to face difficult professional obstacles.
 
Read Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities in Science and Engineering at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/pdf/nsf07315.pdf

Links to the report and more than 4,500 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers also 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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Correction to March 5 Issue
A clerical error in the editing process led to a false link to the Maine Comprehensive Research and Development Evaluation 2006 in last week's issue of the Digest. The correct link is: http://www.maineinnovation.com/studies_reports/default.asp

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