SSTI Digest

President Obama has announced two new competitions for manufacturing innovation hubs as Congress debates whether or not to fund a national network of innovation institutes (see related article). The first hub would foster research and commercialization collaborations around smart manufacturing for the Department of Energy. The second would develop flexible hybrid electronics technology at the Department of Defense. Each institute would receive $70 million or more of federal funding, with a requirement that federal investment be matched by the private sector.  Read the announcement…

On December 4, the Canadian government revealed their national Science and Technology (S&T) Strategy – Seizing Canada's Moment: Moving Forward in Science, Technology and Innovation 2014.  An update to the original report released in 2007, the S&T strategy identifies five priority research areas for federal support over the next seven years: environment and agriculture; health and life sciences; natural resources and energy; information and communications technology; and, advanced manufacturing. Read the strategy…

This week marks 2014 Computer Science Education Week, the Obama administration’s call to the education, business, foundational, and nonprofit communities to help support and expand access to computer science education in American schools. On Monday, the administration announced several commitments aimed at providing millions of additional students with computer since education, including:

This week, governors in Oregon and North Dakota released their budget proposals for the upcoming budget cycle. Although the budgets differ in both size and scope, education, workforce development, and other programs related to technology-based economic development are set to receive considerable amounts of state funding.

Around the world, national governments are working to cultivate their innovation economies and increase their global competiveness by creating and increasing support for government-led initiatives. Leaders of advanced economies recognize that their positions as global leaders face a murky future due to the emergence of new economies. In turn, officials from emerging economies realize that supporting innovation is necessary for their economies to continue their rapid growth. In 2014, governments from both advanced and emerging economies searched for methods that would help their high growth-firms transform their economy and increase their global competiveness. One of the global trends of 2014 was the emergence of government-backed, privately managed venture capital initiatives.

As part of President Obama’s recent executive order on immigration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently issued a number of new policies and regulations intended to capitalize on the skills of foreign workers, researchers and students. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy published an explanation of how the new rules will also be used to attract immigrant entrepreneurs through two new pathways to legal residency.

President Obama’s original memorandum to the heads of federal agencies focuses on the need to streamline immigration bureaucracy, but notes that the majority of American STEM Ph.D.s over the last 50 years were granted to foreign-born students.  One in four high-tech startups have been launched by foreign entrepreneurs. America’s serious reliance on attracting the best and the brightest from around the world necessitates clear pathways to legal residency for immigrants who can bring valuable skills and resources to the U.S. marketplace, according to the memoranda.

The U.S.s entrepreneurial culture, long celebrated as a key element in the country’s economic success, is being threatened by several long-term trends, according to a paper from the Brookings Institution’s Robert Litan and Ian Hathaway. Over the past 30 years, U.S. business starts have slid downward, with many experts and policymakers offering their own explanations for the trend. Litan and Hathaway examine the data and note two possible causes: regional population decline and business consolidation. Though these trends seem unlikely to change in the near future, a new survey by the Kauffman Foundation suggests that underutilized abilities of women entrepreneurs could help boost business creation if properly supported.

Last week, the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) announced the launch of FLCBusiness, an all-inclusive search database that shares information about funding, equipment, know-how, and resources available from the federal lab network for private and public utilization. In a 2011 presidential memorandum, Accelerating Technology Transfer and Commercialization of Federal Research in Support of High-Growth Businesses, President Obama emphasizes the importance of facilitating tech transfer and commercialization through regional public-private partnerships.  In light of this, FLC hopes that FLCBusiness will encourage technology transfer and increase the competitiveness of U.S. private industries by offering an interactive tool that helps them better understand which resources are made available. Read the press release …

With the hopes of better understanding which policy environments encourage and support innovation, new research  from the C.D. Howe Institute, a Canadian public policy thinktank, examines which sectors and provinces drive Canadian patent intensity. Using a new database on patent applications in Canada, the authors find that inventors from Ontario and Alberta, in addition to inventors in the utilities, construction, and computers and electronics sectors produce a disproportionally large share of Canada’s patents, while inventors from Atlantic Canada or in the pharmaceuticals and medical equipment sectors are not producing a large share of patents. 

The Small Business Administration (SBA) released a request for information (RFI) on revisions to two key areas of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) policy directives: SBIR/STTR Phase III policy; and, SBIR/STTR data rights. With regard to SBIR/STTR Phase III Policy, the SBA seeks comments on how to clarify how agencies can make more practical Phase III awards to the small businesses that initially developed the subject technology. In light of recent concerns regarding SBIR/STTR data rights by small business concerns, the SBA seeks comments that provide greater clarity and detail on these issues and recommendations to strengthen the data rights of awardees.  Comments are due January 6, 2015.

On November 20, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) held its annual Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. During the daylong event, panelists focused on two important issues – secondary market liquidity for securities of small businesses and the potential revision of accredited investor definition. The SEC has posted both the panelists’ presentations and an archived webcast of the morning session. Presentations from the SEC and the Angel Capital Association (ACA) provide up-to-date statistics and infographics on the potential economic impacts of revising the accredited investor definition, including current share of angel group deals by U.S. region and number of individual/households who would qualify under proposed increase in the threshold for accreditation. 

Over the last couple weeks, governors in Arkansas and Mississippi presented budgets to their stage legislature. In Arkansas, term-limited Gov. Mike Beebe presented two budget proposals for the 2015-17 biennial budget to state lawmakers. However, Gov.-elect Asa Hutchison also will present a budget to the legislature that may differ from Gov. Beebe’s proposal and potentially impact funding for state agencies due to a proposed $100 million individual income tax cut. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant released his fiscal year 2016 (FY16) executive budget recommendations highlighted by a $52 million increase in funding for public education including a $3 million commitment for the Mississippi Works Scholarship Program.