SSTI Digest

The White House published its FY 2025 budget this week. As Congress will ultimately produce its preferred budget, the president’s release like those of previous Administrations serves as more of a messaging document outlining a vision and priorities. For tech-based economic development (TBED), the message is that Congress has provided ample tools but needs to continue to fund them. Among the federal TBED programs included in the (188-page) budget summary perhaps the biggest ask among these programs is EDA’s Tech Hubs, which the administration recommends at $4 billion in mandatory funding. The program was authorized at $10 billion, but Congress so far has appropriated just $500 million. The Department of Energy also received a comparatively robust increase of 7.5%, including increases in research and innovation activities. Most other requests are more inline with recent appropriations levels, including EDA’s Build to Scale at $50 million; the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines at $205 million; and, the Small Business Administration’s FAST, Regional Innovation Clusters, and Growth Accelerator Fund Competition at $10 million each. …

The real gross domestic product (GDP) of private industries has steadily increased nationwide from 2018-2022, with an average percentage increase of 2% each year, or 9% total, despite a drop from 2019-2020 due to the pandemic. However, the same cannot be said across all private industries; of the 14 broad industries captured by U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data,[1] eight have grown while six decreased over the five-year period from 2018-2022. While a prior SSTI Useful Stats article went in depth about overall state-level industry GDP profiles using BEA data, this edition of Useful Stats explores all U.S. counties, identifying trends and clustering across the nation’s private industries through a more granular lens. The primary metric used is “Real GDP.” Real GDP is an inflation-adjusted measure of GDP– in this case chained to 2017 USD. In other words, all dollar amounts in this article are portrayed in their 2017 equivalents to allow for a more direct comparison of the values.   County private industry GDPs across the nation In 2022, the total real GDP of all private industries across all U.S. counties was $19.3 trillion—an…

By a bipartisan vote on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved legislation that would reauthorize the Economic Development Administration for the first time since 2004. The bill amends the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965 and does not affect the technology-based economic development programs authorized through separate legislation that are administered by EDA.

The National Science Board released the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators report on Wednesday. This report compiles data about the composition of the U.S. research enterprise and its trajectory relative to that of other nations. It covers data collected through 2021. The 2024 Indicators report shows that the U.S. remains the most prominent performer of R&D, with $806 billion in gross domestic expenditures in 2021. China, at $668 billion, is the next largest performer. The U.S. spends 3.5% of U.S. GDP on R&D, the highest percentage the nation has ever spent. Most of the R&D spending increases have come from private businesses, particularly in the information technology and pharmaceutical industries, while federal spending has remained roughly flat. The report also shows that several high-tech business sectors fund almost as much basic research as the federal government. The report illustrates that the U.S.'s global position is being challenged by China. In a statement released on March 8, the National Science Board said the Indicators report shows that China has surpassed the U.S. in “STEM talent production, research publications, patents,…

On March 1, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey introduced and filed her administration’s anticipated economic development measure, AN Act Relative to Strengthening Massachusetts’ Economic Leadership, or the Mass Leads Act. The measure seeks to reauthorize the state’s life sciences investments at $1 billion for the next decade, launch a separate $1 billion, 10-year climatetech initiative, and build on the momentum of the state's CHIPS + Science wins by proposing targeted investments in advanced manufacturing and robotics. It also includes $100 million to create an Applied AI Hub in Massachusetts. It seeks to advance the strategies, implement the policies, and fund the initiatives Healy laid out in her economic development plan, Team Massachusetts—Leading Future Generations, which was released in December and presented in her 2024 State of the State address. The measure details major new proposals to make Massachusetts a global hub for the life sciences, climatetech, and applied artificial intelligence (AI). The governor stressed that the goal of her proposal is to “position Massachusetts for sustained growth and shared prosperity for years to come.” The administration’…

A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency’s presumption that businesses owned by Blacks, Latinos and other minorities are disadvantaged violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. Unless it appeals, the Department of Commerce, which oversees MBDA, will be forced to immediately cease using an applicant’s race or ethnicity in determining eligibility for the program. An appeal seems likely, but, according to an article in the Washington Post, it would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which has a conservative majority. Among other programs, MBDA administers the Capital Readiness Program, a $125 million technical assistance program to help underserved entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses that is funded by the Department of Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). The judge found the MBDA’s use of racial categories did not survive strict scrutiny. “While the government may have a role in remedying MBEs’ (minority business enterprises’) credit problems, the evidence doesn’t show it had a role in causing them—at least not as a participant.…

Last August, SSTI released a data tool exhibiting investment activity across 18 key technology areas. The tool comprises two interactive visuals and a downloadable data file and uses Pitchbook technology verticals selected to align with many of the key technology focus areas defined in the CHIPS and Science Act. The tool breaks down the number of investment-backed companies, investment deals, and amount of capital invested by each state, year (January 1, 2013-December 31, 2023), and investment stage (e.g., seed, angel, venture). SSTI has updated the underlying data through December 31, 2023. SSTI analyzed the 59 industry verticals Pitchbook collects investment data for, comparing them against the 10 key technology-focused areas (KTFA) defined by the CHIPS and Science Act and used in other innovation programs such as EDA’s Tech Hubs. Data was then reformatted for ease of use and built into the provided visualizations and downloadable spreadsheet. The data used to develop this tool comes from Pitchbook and is published by SSTI with permission. Through SSTI’s Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Community of Practice, supported by EDA, all organizations can…

Americans have a strong level of confidence in scientists and scientific institutions overall, as SSTI reported in a Digest article in December 2023. A new NSF report reviews recent literature about public perceptions, awareness, and information sources for science, and reports strong support for science. However, in their extensive literature review, the authors found evidence of current uncertainty and varying levels of awareness and acceptance of newer technologies, such as AI, robotics, and automotive automation. The authors conclude that there is a pattern among Americans of not knowing much about science and not being very involved in science activities. “That pattern suggests that direct exposure to how S&T professionals conduct their work to generate peer-reviewed research publications has been limited among Americans, and future changes in such exposure could hold implications for Americans’ relationships with S&T institutions.” Depending on the trends, those implications could be either negative or positive. Public perceptions of newer science and technology The authors reviewed literature on newer science and technology topics that…

More than five months into fiscal year 2024, Congress has approved an agreement covering six of the twelve annual appropriations bills. Many tech-based economic development (TBED) programs received funding equal to the FY 2023 base appropriation—a strong sign of support for a year in which Congress agreed to return to FY 2022 overall spending levels and many programs across the federal government, therefore, saw cuts. However, because Congress has not agreed to provide again the supplemental funding that fueled robust spending last year, the FY 2024 budget actually provides hundreds of millions of dollars less in total TBED spending than was appropriated in FY 2023. Congress adopted the SSTI Innovation Advocacy Council’s recommended Build to Scale funding level of $50 million, matching the FY 2023 level and above the White House’s request of $45 million. For Tech Hubs, Congress provided $41 million, matching the FY 2023 base appropriation but well below last year’s $500 million in total funding, the White House’s request of $4 billion (with $2.5 billion to be used in FY 2024), and the Innovation Advocacy Council’s recommendation of $2.5 billion. The National…

In a webinar last week, staff from BioSTL and SSTI shared their organizations’ use of Salesforce for grant management and reporting. It facilitated a lively discussion among the more than 100 attendees about technical and practical challenges and solutions for the platform. The presentation and recording are now available here. In a poll last year, participants in the Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Community of Practice identified Salesforce as the most commonly used customer management system (CMS) in the field (followed by Excel and with HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics as other common solutions). SSTI previously shared a demonstration of AirTable’s use for managing TBED initiatives and seeks organizations willing to discuss other platforms. To volunteer your experience or to get more information about the TBED Community of Practice, contact tbedcop@ssti.org.   This article was prepared by SSTI using Federal funds under award ED22HDQ3070129 from the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the…

Last week, the National Science Foundation announced it would provide $21.4 million to four projects at emerging research institutions (ERIs) to advance research administration infrastructure and support systems at non-R1 institutions. The awards are from NSF’s Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Equity and Diversity (GRANTED) program, which, according to the NSF announcement, “aims to help R2, R3, undergraduate and community colleges become more competitive against more well-funded research institutions in national research funding opportunities.” NSF can extend this funding to non-R-1 institutions because of the CHIPS and Science Act provision for a new designation for ERIs. This provision encouraged federal programs that targeted Minority Serving Institutions and Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) jurisdictions to begin including ERIs in program eligibility. (See this SSTI Digest article published in May 2023 for more on the new designation and a map of ERI locations.) ERIs are higher education institutions that have established undergraduate or graduate programs but conduct less than $50 million in…

Why do some universities excel at translating their research into economic impact while others lag? A recent NBER working paper explores the factors influencing the variation in universities' commercialization activities. The authors follow the career movements of 31,000 academic researchers across 1,100 U.S. universities and analyze how the situations at the different host universities may have influenced an increase or decrease in these researchers’ subsequent patent filings and company formations. The authors present three key findings. First, moving to a university with a stronger commercialization infrastructure, such as one with a technology transfer office and venture capital network increases the likelihood of an academic's research leading to patents and company formation by 15-25%. This increase suggests universities play a crucial role in fostering innovation and technology transfer. Second, universities within technology clusters benefit from proximity to resources, talent, and potential partners, further boosting commercialization potential. Third, the study shows variable success rates within institutions, suggesting that specific…