SSTI Digest

Government offices focused on innovation have been around for several years, yet some states and even the federal government are seeking new ways to incorporate the concept into their offices. This week the White House announced a new Office of American Innovation, while earlier this month Rhode Island used its Office of Innovation to launch a new effort called the Government Innovation League, and in January Ohio’s governor proposed funding a new state office focused on innovation, emerging technologies and their job-creation potential.

Noting a growing need for additional education to meet workforce needs, several states have announced programs focusing on education and workforce needs, channeling state funding to grants that will focus on aligning learning opportunities with business and industry needs, or creating new initiatives in the private sector. Reaching a higher educational attainment among a greater percentage of the workforce by 2025 is also a goal set by several of the states. Among the initiatives undertaken are free tuition options in Arkansas through the ARFuture grant, Nevada STEM Workforce Challenge Grants, a grant program in Utah focused on education and industry, and a private sector effort in New Hampshire.

In a document provided to Politico and now widely circulated, the White House revealed its budget reductions for FY 2017. While the budget is currently under a continuing resolution through April 28, the proposed funding numbers largely reflect a partial-year implementation of the administration’s FY 2018 budget blueprint. One new piece of information is that the National Science Foundation would receive a $350 million reduction, equal to about five percent of the agency’s budget.

A better future depends on science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, but it also depends on harnessing these tools as a way to solve society’s shared problems. Growing jobs and wealth in a community is the goal of nearly all economic development programs, but more can be done to ensure that the public good is given an equal priority when developing regional prosperity strategies. The following highlights examples of technology-based economic development organizations increasingly focusing their efforts on creating opportunity through innovation.

Through Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s proposed budget, the country’s 2017 Innovation and Skills Plan will provide significant support for efforts intended to attract talented immigrants to the country, encourage investments in clean tech, and make the government procurement process easier for small, emerging technology firms. While the country plans to spend heavily on innovation, the rest of PM Trudeau’s budget curtails new spending and major tax changes due to political uncertainty in the U.S. – Canada’s largest trading partner.

Once again, more than three-quarters of U.S. venture capital (VC) dollars went to companies in California, New York and Massachusetts in 2016, according to data from the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)/CB Insights’ Moneytree Report Explorer. Approximately 53.3 percent of all VC capital went to California companies, down nearly 4.4 percent from the states peak in 2014 (57.7) and down 3.9 percent from 2015. While California’s share declined, both Massachusetts and New York saw increases in their share of VC dollars invested:

The U.S. House Science Committee released a letter last week reasserting the majority party’s interest in setting R&D priorities for federal science agencies and supporting appropriation levels that generally align with the White House’s budget blueprint. The letter notes priorities for most of the $42 billion in R&D budgets within the committee’s purview.

State budget season shifts from the proposal stage to legislative approval. Over the coming months, the Digest will cover funding of relevant programs. Our first look includes $2.5 million in Wyoming for the Economically Needed Diversification Options for Wyoming (ENDOW) program and $4.6 million in South Dakota for the Office of Research Commerce.

A recent study by the W.E. Upjohn Institute finds that the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program generates a substantial economic and financial return on investment for the federal government. The $130 million invested in MEP during FY2016 by the federal government generated more than $1.1 billion in increased federal personal income tax, a ROI of roughly 8.7:1, according to Upjohn. The study’s authors also find evidence that total employment in the U.S. was more than 142,000 jobs higher than it would have been without the program, based on direct, indirect, and induced jobs generated by projects at MEP centers. Additional economic impacts of the program identified by Upjohn include personal income that is $8.4 billion higher and overall GDP is $15.4 billion greater.

Proposed under previous South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the state’s FY 2017-2018 budget request calls for approximately $3.5 billion to be spent on K-12 and higher education funding including:

• $5 million for industry certifications and credentials;
• $2 million in funding for modernization of the state’s careers centers through the Career and Technology Education (CATE) programs; and,
• $500,000 in funding for highly qualified professionals to leave their occupations to enter a new career teaching at CATE centers – each participant would receive an annual $5,000 scholarship for up to 10 years.

The budget also proposed funding to support endowed chairs at institutions of higher education, the MEP center, the SBDCs, and the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness.

While many universities maintain startup investment funds targeted at growing university-affiliated startups, several universities are looking beyond their walls for investment opportunities that will create a return on investment (ROI), but also support economic prosperity. Through these investment funds, universities are able to make strategic investment in startups that will contribute to the future growth of their community, region and state. Massachusetts provides a recent example where MIT will invest $25 million in local startups.  Virginia Tech has also said it will invest $15 million in startups willing to locate in Blacksburg and Roanoke’s innovation corridor.

America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) have released Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing (Version 1.0) to help coordinate and accelerate the development of industry-wide additive manufacturing standards and specifications. In the roadmap, the authors highlight 89 gaps – 19 of which are high priority – where no published standard or specification currently exists to address a particular industry need.  Topical areas include standards for design, process and materials, qualification and certification, nondestructive evaluation, and maintenance. The organizations goal is for the roadmap to be broadly adopted by the standards community and for it to facilitate a more coherent and coordinated approach to the future development of standards and specifications for additive manufacturing.