Top among them is a £750 Million ($1 Billion USD) Strategic Investment Fund that “will provide financial support, focusing on emerging technologies and regionally important sectors in, for example, advanced manufacturing, digital and biotechnology,” Darling said in his address.

This includes an additional £50 million for the Technology Strategy Board and £10 million for UK Trade and Investment. Fully one third of the new funds, £250 million, will be earmarked for low carbon investments.

The Technology Strategy Board manages a £1 billion portfolio of TBED programs, including university-business collaborative research grants, a series of knowledge transfer networks for technology transfer, and research centers.   The Board has not announced how the new funding will be distributed.

Also launched at the end of April is the new £100 million Small Business Research Initiative, a research development program modeled somewhat on the U.S. SBIR program and even sharing the letters in the acronym. Competitions opened for health care and defense technologies, with proposals requested to address 3 and 2 topics respectively. Up to 20 SBRI competitions are anticipated to run this year.

Chancellor Darling also announced £405m of new funding to encourage low carbon energy and advanced green manufacturing in Britain – “to drive the application of new technology and invest in small scale projects.” The funds are part of what the chancellor called “the world's first ever carbon budget,” which commits Britain to cut carbon emission by 34 percent by 2020. Overall, low carbon sectors are receiving £1.4 billion in new funds according Treasury press notes.  Some of the funds will be used for conservation and efficiency projects; while other funds will release up to £4 billion of European Investment Bank financing for UK renewable energy projects.

For broadband, the budget allocates £100 million for digital investment led by Yorkshire Forward that will roll-out next-generation broadband to South Yorkshire. Yorkshire Forward is a regional development agency charged with improving the economies of Yorkshire and Humber.

Also on the city-region level, the budget includes funding for two pilot city-region projects in Greater Manchester and Leeds. The pilot city-regions will benefit from the stronger integration of planning, housing, transport, regeneration, employment and skills programs, increasing their ability to drive sustainable growth and economic development.

More information on the 2009 UK budget is available at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/bud_bud09_index.htm. 

To improve the state’s telecommunications infrastructure, $25 million will be leveraged with up to $500 million in federal funding for improved broadband access. The goal is to put in place a system worth about $1 billion when combined with private investments to replace the current system of low- and high-speed connections scattered throughout the state, according to a Des Moines Register article.

Another $10 million will be used to create a revolving loan program to support alternative energy projects for both new job creation and energy independence.

Lawmakers passed a measure that reorganizes the Grow Iowa Values Fund and establishes a Grow Iowa Values Fund assistance program for economic development projects that meet certain criteria. This includes an entrepreneurial component of the program that will focus on early-stage companies and a value-added agricultural component for innovative agricultural products and processes, innovative and new renewable fuels, agricultural biotech, biomass, and alternative energy production.  The bill also establishes an accelerated career education fund and High Quality Jobs program that provides tax incentives to businesses based on the number of jobs created or retained. The appropriation for the Grow Iowa Values Fund is $32 million in FY10. However, budget language stipulates that $1 million from the fund be transferred to the general fund.

Gov. Culver signed into law SF 142 providing for an innovation and commercialization development fund to enhance commercialization in targeted industries of advanced manufacturing, bioscience, information technology and entrepreneurship and to increase the availability of skilled workers for those industries. The bill appropriates $3 million annually from the Grow Iowa Values Fund through FY15.

Two other bills signed by the governor during the session are designed to expand Iowa’s wind energy industry. SF 456 utilizes unused tax credits to promote small wind energy projects across the state and HF 817 provides economic incentives for wind component manufacturers who are looking to build or expand in the state.

A third installment of $25 million was approved for the Iowa Power Fund. The four-year, $100 million fund invests in private sector renewable and alternative energy industries (see the May 7, 2007 issue of the Digest).

Because fewer than 100 legislators voted in favor of the appropriations bill, Governor Schweitzer retains line item authority for the budget.

One of the more contentious issues during the budget negotiations concerned tuition hikes and funding for Montana universities and community colleges. Gov. Brian Schweitzer favors a freeze on tuition rates at state schools, but university leaders have argued that state funding has proved insufficient. The FY10-11 budget reduces funding for the state higher education system, but the governor is encouraging the Board of Regents to retain the current cap on tuitions.

Full text of the appropriations bill is available at: http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0002.htm

A bill approved by the legislature in late April would reduce the state’s statutory appropriation for several economic development programs through 2019. HB123 reduces funding for the state Department of Agriculture’s Growth through Agriculture program by $625,000 over the next biennium and reduces funding for the Montana Board of Research and Commercialization by $2.38 million. These cuts represent reductions of 40 percent and 65 percent, respectively.  Gov. Schweitzer has yet to sign or veto the bill.

The full text of HB123 is available at: http://tinyurl.com/cw2nyp

In April, the governor released the details of his plan to invest the estimated $800 million coming to the state through the federal government’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act over the next 28 months. His plan includes $53 million for energy and weatherization initiatives, including $26 million for the 20X10 Initiative, which aims to reduce energy consumption at state agencies. Another $51 million would go to Montana universities and community colleges and help freeze tuition. Job training and workforce development would receive $12.6 million and rural broadband initiatives would get $5 million. Gov. Schweitzer believes the investments will help to create 11,000 new jobs and help spur economic growth. The plan was approved by the legislature at the end of the session and now awaits the governor’s signature. On Tuesday, the governor vetoed a measure to create a state-sponsored website to monitor stimulus spending.

The full text of HB645 is available at: http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0645.htm

On Wednesday, Gov. Schweitzer signed a bill related to the underground storage of carbon dioxide that previously he had promised to veto. The bill died in committee in April, but was later passed with significant changes. Under the new law, oversight of carbon sequestration would be shifted from the Board of Environmental Review to the Board of Oil and Gas. Land owners, in this case coal power producers, would own the underground “pore space” where the carbon is stored and would be responsible for monitoring that space for 30 years. The land then would be turned over to the state, subject to state approval.

Two other energy bills still await the governor’s consideration. SB403 would make it easier for large utility companies to meet their obligation to purchase electricity from renewable sources and renewable energy credits. The second bill, SB257, would allow a hydroelectric dam upgrade owned by PPL Montana to incur renewable energy credits, to apply retroactively back to 2004. The state’s wind energy producers are encouraging the governor to veto both utility-sponsored bills, arguing that they would render the state’s renewable energy quotas meaningless. SB403 would allow large utilities to avoid buying either renewable energy or credits and SB257 would flood the state market for the credits, opponents say.

The Missoulian is tracking the status of these bills at: http://www.missoulian.com/legislature_sub/.

To sign up, visit: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=ptpNtZjc_WjTWYHUYeVkWHw.

More information about the awards is available at: www.sstiawards.org.

Established by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007, Canada’s STIC is the equivalent of the President’s Council of Advisors for Science & Technology, or PCAST, in the U.S. Most of State of the Nation 2008 presents a statistical case for why Canada must be more aggressive in its innovation policies through comparison with other industrialized countries using more than 50 indicators of performance. In addition, the report profiles several regional and national efforts within Canada that are supporting innovation.

The report suggests Canada is losing ground to other countries that are more actively supporting science, technology and innovation and that Canada’s standard of living is likely to drop over the long term as a result – unless action is taken now.

The opening sentence sums up why every government – federal, provincial/state or regional – must actively embrace tech-based economic development policies:

“Strength and leadership in science, technology and innovation is the price of entry to full participation in the knowledge-based global economy of the 21^st century.”

STIC qualifies its conclusions and recommendations. Citing a lack of conclusive data on which policies were most effective, the advisory panel avoided suggesting specific activities over others.

Nevertheless, whether or not analysts understand what levels or types of research investments are most beneficial to a company and what types of incentives best encourage industrial research, STIC can conclude it does know Canadian businesses that engage in R&D are more productive and have greater sales of new products than those firms that do not. Unfortunately, despite offering businesses one of “the most advantageous innovation tax incentives” in the world, business R&D investment has remained fairly constant for four decades. The challenge for the government is to identify how to encourage more business research investment.

Additionally, knowledge is still forming about types of collaboration that best foster innovation whether it is between businesses and universities or business-to-business research partnerships. But STIC concluded more collaboration is vital to strengthening the global competitiveness of any of Canada’s industrial and economic sectors.

The risk for any governmental body, Canadian or U.S., can be paralysis through inaction waiting for information to be collected and analyzed for statistical significance. The first report from STIC says in the knowledge-based global economy, Canada may pay a heavy price if it stands still.  

State of the Nation 2008 is available at: http://www.stic-csti.ca/eic/site/stic-csti.nsf/eng/Home.

Using population to standardize federal obligations to academia on the state level is less than ideal as the data don’t have much to do with each other. But it provides a starting point for comparison. Toward that end, SSTI has prepared a table listing the academic obligations per capita from FY 2002 to 2006, the percent change of these obligations per capita over this period, and the relative rank of this change.

The range in per capita figures among the states is significant. At $402.50, the District of Columbia led the nation in federal R&D obligations to academia per capita in 2006. This was followed by Maryland ($300.10), Massachusetts ($230.00), Hawaii ($165.50), and then Connecticut ($137.40). Twenty-four states had per capita academic R&D obligations in 2006 greater than the national average. Maine, Florida, Idaho, Arkansas, and Oklahoma were the states with the lowest per capita values.

South Dakota experienced the largest percentage increase in federal obligations to academia per capita from 2002 to 2006, rising 112.9 percent to $58.40 per person. The states with the largest five-year increases, measured by percentage growth in per capita, include North Dakota, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Montana.

NSF defines obligations as “the amounts for orders placed, contracts awarded, services received, and similar transactions during a given period, regardless of when the funds were appropriated and when future payment of money is required. Obligations differ from expenditures in that funds allocated by federal agencies during one fiscal year may be spent by the recipient institution either partially or entirely during one or more subsequent years.“

SSTI's table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/050609t.htm

The data for the table came from the Census Bureau and the NSF’s Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions, FY 2006. The later is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf09310/

Bill Gimson has been named executive director of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Gimson recently retired as the chief operating officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jeremy Hill has been named the director of the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University. Hill replaces Janet Harrah, who left the post for Northern Kentucky University.

Jack Jewett, a former president of the Arizona Board of Regents and five-term member of the Arizona House of Representatives, was chosen as the president and chief executive officer of the Flinn Foundation. He succeeds retiring president and CEO John Murphy, who has led the foundation since 1981. Jewett will assume the position in June.

Judith Krauthamer has been appointed executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association.

The Angel Capital Association (ACA) and Angel Capital Education Foundation (ACEF) has named William Payne, ACA founder and active participant in four angel groups, as the recipient of the 2009 Hans Severiens Award. The award recognizes individual accomplishments in the advancement of angel investing.

Towson University has appointed Steve Peck as its first CEO-in-residence. The new position has been created to strengthen its outreach to businesses and its business education courses.

The Southern Tier Central Regional Planning and Development Board is celebrating 40 years of helping coordinate a regional approach to municipal planning and economic development.

Louis Quam is launching Tysvar, a business incubator that will help develop startups in health care and clean energy and strengthen technology transfer between Minnesota and Norway.

The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology announced the selection of Ronald White, as the university’s vice president for research. White will begin his role on July 1.