SSTI Digest

One of the most important economic development issues facing communities across the country, especially those reliant on family-owned manufacturing firms, may sometimes fly under the radar: succession planning. A robust study from the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois-Chicago combines qualitative (literature review, survey, and interviews) and quantitative analyses (economic impact report) to shed light on this issue, with a focus on the Chicago metropolitan area.

Both female-founded startups and female investors have seen slow progress over the past 10 years, and still face an uphill battle for equality in the venture capital industry. While the deal count for companies founded solely by women has more than quadrupled since 2008, the share of venture dollar invested has remained nearly flat, hovering around 2.0 percent over the same time, according to PitchBook. Similarly, only 10 percent of VC ‘decision-makers’ are women, up from 5.7 percent in 2016.

JPMorgan Chase has announced a new $350 million, five-year global initiative intended to meet the growing demand for skilled workers. The New Skills at Work investment will support community college and other non-traditional career pathway programs. It focuses on creating economic mobility and career pathways for underserved populations, as well as helping to forecast emerging skillsets for JPMorgan Chase employees.

The initiative includes $200 million to help prepare individuals for the future of work by developing and piloting innovative new education and training programs aligned with high-demand digital and technical skills. Philanthropic investments are planned for programs that are proven to help more people, such as women, people of color, veterans, and returning citizens, secure in-demand, good jobs. 

Women, persons with disabilities and some minority groups are underrepresented in science and engineering (S&E) when compared to the overall population, according to the latest data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). Although women have reached parity with men among S&E bachelor’s degree recipients — half of S&E bachelor’s degrees were awarded to women in 2016 — they are still underrepresented in S&E occupations. Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, and American Indians or Alaska Natives have gradually increased their share of S&E degrees, but they remain underrepresented in S&E educational attainment and in the S&E workforce. By contrast, Asians are overrepresented among S&E degree recipients and among employed scientists and engineers.

SSTI is excited to announce we are partnering with the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation to bring you and approximately 300 of your peers to Providence on Sep 9-11 for SSTI’s 2019 Annual Conference. Please hold the date on your calendar – or better yet – go ahead and register now to obtain the lowest possible prices for attendance!

Providence is a creative city that has to be experienced to be believed. With so much public art, rich history, amazing food and cool spaces, nearly every aspect of the city is innovative by design: a perfect location to be inspired.

The budget that Congress ultimately passes for FY 2020 will almost certainly bear little resemblance to the President’s “Budget for a Better America: Promises Kept. Taxpayers First.” For example, the White House is requesting again to eliminate EDA and to reduce R&D significantly, despite Congress increasing funding for these activities less than a month ago. Nonetheless, Congress will grapple with a set of issues, such as budget caps and Census funding, that may squeeze the funding available for SSTI members’ priorities. A lot more than a rejection of the White House’s budget needs to happen for science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship funding to even hold steady let alone increase in FY 2020.

The circular economy, a phrase meant to redefine economic growth beyond the current “take-make-waste” extractive industrial model, is gaining attention around the world as a way to produce more positive environmental and social benefits. Over the past few months, three cities have announced efforts to promote circular economy startups. In New York City, a contest will offer a $500,000 prize to the best idea and business plan that seeks to repurpose the city’s recyclables and manufacture a product to sell to the local market. The City of Phoenix and Arizona State University announced four companies will participate in an incubator affiliated with the Resource Innovation and Solutions Network (RISN). Last fall, public sector partners and the university-based Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) collaborated to launch a new Circular Economy Incubator in the region.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has released a working paper that establishes connections between opioid prescription rates and employment rates. The authors use longitudinal data, as well as leveraging the Great Recession as a sort of natural experiment, to provide evidence that opioids not only relate to declining labor force participation, but have likely caused this outcome. Their evidence suggests these impacts are stronger for men without a college education.

A key finding of the report is that of the two percent decline in labor force participation by men in prime working ages since 2006, approximately half of that decline can be attribute to opioid use.

At the root of this impact is evidence that a 10 percent increase in opioid prescriptions corresponded to a five percent increase in unemployment among men, according to one of the authors in a speech explaining the paper.

Research and development (R&D) expenditures at federally funded R&D centers (FFRDCs) increased for the fourth consecutive year in FY 2017, eclipsing $20 billion, according to new data from the National Science Foundation. FFRDCs are privately operated R&D organizations that are substantially financed by the federal government. The FFRDCs that performed the most R&D in 2017 were DOE’s Sandia National Lab, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and DOE’s Los Alamos National Lab. From FY 2016 to FY 2017, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, based in Pasadena, CA, experienced the largest increase in R&D expenditures, rising 25.5 percent to $2.3 billion.  In honor of pie day, the chart below shows the distribution of R&D at FFRDC’s by each administrator type.

A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis showed that women’s increased participation in the labor force has not led to a correspondingly greater participation of women in the highest executive positions at the organizations where they work. In fact, the study showed that women are significantly less likely to lead U.S. businesses than men are, and that this share has remained largely unchanged over the 2000-2014 period.

The report set out to investigate the role played by women as entrepreneurs and executives in the private sector. Using data from the National Establishment Time-Series collected by Dun & Bradstreet, the authors found that all firms with a female CEO rose slightly, from 17.6 percent in 2000 to 18.8 percent in 2014. However, the share of women-led firms across new firms increased more significantly, rising from 19.7 percent to 24.1 percent over the same period. The study also showed that conditional on leading a business, women are more likely to be CEOs of smaller and younger firms than men.

TEDCO’s current portfolio of assisted companies has grown to 326 companies and more than 3,100 jobs, according to an economic impact report by the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute and TEConomy Partners. TEDCO was created by the Maryland State Legislature in 1998 to facilitate the transfer and commercialization of technology from Maryland’s research universities and federal labs into the marketplace. The direct Maryland economic activity generated by these core programs totaled nearly $900 million in 2018, a considerable increase from the $572.3 million in economic activity reported in 2015. Of all TEDCO programs, the Seed Investment Fund has the largest direct impact, accounting for more than half of all employment and direct economic activity.

In January, the U.S. Senate confirmed Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier as director of the White House Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and since the end of the partial federal government shutdown, the director and office have produced informative reports and speeches. Two common threads through these sources are emphases on continued American leadership in key tech sectors — and that this leadership will increasingly occur in conjunction with, or under the direction of, private industry.

OSTP Director’s comments

Droegemeier’s first speech as director was made to AAAS on Feb. 15 and was preceded the day before by an interview with Science. In both places, the director lays out a series of organizing principles that also serve as an explanation of the administration’s science activities to date: