SSTI Digest

The White House Office of Management and Budget today released America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again, an overview of the administration’s proposal for the FY 2018 federal budget. This is a precursor for the full budget proposal, expected in May. The administration would increase spending authority for defense and security by $54 billion while decreasing all other discretionary spending by an equivalent amount. The White House would eliminate the Economic Development Administration, Appalachian Regional Commission and Delta Regional Authority, among others, along with all funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and ARPA-E, and would impose significant reductions in research spending by most agencies.

The Trump Administration’s skinny budget proposal released today calls itself, “A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again.” From the information contained in the document, it is clear the Administration does not view science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and the economic development efforts built around those activities as the path forward to making “America great again.” The program eliminations and drastic cuts are not the way to move the country forward economically. So what is behind this proposal? Two things: 1) a fight over the proper role of the federal government in the economy, and 2) a negotiating tactic to attempt to lull advocates into thinking program survival or lesser cuts are a victory. A full community response is needed and all of us must get off the sidelines and on to the playing field.

Ranging from diligent research to coin flips, pure chalk to cutest mascot, everyone has their own strategy for completing an NCAA college basketball championship bracket. At SSTI, we’ve completed our brackets based on NSF’s university data for R&D expenditures and doctorates produced, as well as the selection committee’s rankings. The chart included with this article displays the data.

Update: The bracket that predicted the men's tournament using a combination of R&D expenditures, doctorates produced and NCAA ranking finished in the top 10 percent of all brackets submitted to the NCAA's tournament challenge. The NSF data-only men's backets finished in the bottom 20 percent. The expenditure and combined women's brackets did predict Stanford's success, but were otherwise not particularly strong. More details for all of the men’s and women’s brackets below.

The SSTI Excellence in TBED awards program is back! SSTI wants to provide you with a national platform to share your organization’s success stories and be recognized during this year’s 2017 Annual Conference as a leader in the economic development field. Tell your story by submitting an application in one of this year’s awards categories:

The call for application will open in early April with the release of 2017 SSTI Awards brochure. More details for submission will be announced in the coming weeks, with this year’s deadline of May 26. Information on last year’s winners is available here.

Research-performing institutions of higher education increased their science and engineering (S&E) research space by only 1.4 percent from FY 2013 to FY 2015, according to the biennial  Survey of Science and Engineering Research Facilities, the lowest two-year percentage increase since NSF started collecting the data in 1988.  In FY 2015, total research space reached 214.7 million net assignable square feet (NASF) – an increase of 2.9 million in NASF from 211.8 million in FY 2013. The rate of increase was substantially below the average two-year growth rate (4.9 percent), as measured from FY 1988 to FY 2015.

Science and engineering research space in academic institutions, change over two-year period: FYs 1988–2015: (source NSF)

Join us in Washington, DC on Sept. 13-15 for SSTI’s 2017 Annual Conference. During each conference, the leading policymakers and practitioners of regional innovation economies come together to discuss critical opportunities and common challenges. Washington, DC provides an opportunity not only to meet with these peers, but also to showcase the impact of science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship for federal officials and legislators. Learn more about the conference, register at early bird rates and reserve your room at ssticonference.org.

The Midwest and the Greater Philadelphia region have found pathways to build strong life sciences industries and create environments that provide the necessary risk capital for healthcare startups. These life sciences clusters are driven by leading healthcare companies, high quality health systems, and top notch research institutions as well as strong entrepreneurial support ecosystems. The region’s startup ecosystem saw 375 life startups attract over $1.7 billion in investments in 2016, according to the Midwest Healthcare Growth Capital Report from BioEnterprise, a Cleveland-based biomedical accelerator. 

The last of the state of the state addresses are trickling in, with Florida’s governor this week making the case for the state’s economic development organization and business incentives, which the Florida House of Representatives have targeted for elimination. Last month Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin called for education reform and highlighted the competition for state funds in workforce development. Ohio and Louisiana’s governors are scheduled to deliver their remarks in April.

Florida

In a world where disruptive innovation can change an entire industry, higher education has remained largely unaffected, according to a recent paper from The Christensen Institute. Innovations in higher education traditionally have centered on changes that allowed the industry to remain competitive and meet new challenges by pushing forward along established trajectories, such as building new buildings or adding new majors. But with technological changes moving deeper into the higher education field, traditional institutions are facing a greater challenge. As those institutions face rising tuition costs, declining state support and affordability issues due to weak wage growth, their business model is vulnerable to threats from larger disruptions. How they choose to respond may determine their future success. Five case studies presented in the paper showcase models that have succeeded in addressing such challenges through disruptive innovations, pushing their institutions into new dimensions.

The Senate confirmed Wilbur Ross as Commerce secretary Monday night by a vote of 72 to 27 and he was sworn into office by Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday. The 79-year-old billionaire investor becomes the 39th head of the office, which oversees several key economic development organizations including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Economic Development Administration, the U.S.

The Trump administration’s initial proposal of a $54 billion increase in defense spending with the same amount being cut from non-defense spending would alter spending rules established in 2013, which set a cap on discretionary spending across the federal government and affected defense and non-defense spending equally. Press reports have indicated congressional opposition to this approach with a key House appropriator commenting, "The president will propose, and the Congress will dispose.” While the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has provided top-line numbers to individual agencies as it works in preparing the FY 2018 budget request, those figures have not been released publicly. The full FY 2018 budget proposal is expected in late spring with an outline to be released mid-March.

Last month, SSTI highlighted a recent research paper on the debate regarding university-industry collaboration’s impact on the academic ideal of open sciences and reduced academic productivity. In a new working paper from National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), MIT researcher Heidi Williams examines another controversial Intellectual Property (IP) topic – whether patent systems, in practice, improve the alignment between private returns and social contributions. Williams findings indicate that for select industries the patents of large firms can reduce the amount of follow-on innovation conducted by small firms and startups – potentially reducing the social impact of those new technologies. However, for select industries, patent invalidation – the denial of patent rights by the USTPO or federal courts – has limited impact on follow-on innovation.

Through How Do Patents Affect Research Investments?, Williams tries to identify three parameters: