SSTI Digest

New energy plans unveiled by governors in Connecticut and Mississippi promise to capitalize on current strengths, build capacity for future projects, and encourage public-private partnerships to scale up clean energy projects and create jobs by attracting more R&D investment to the states. Connecticut's draft strategy proposes economic incentives to drive down costs of new technology and maximize the use of clean energy finance banks — an approach that is heralded as a model for other states in a recent policy report. At the same time, a new roadmap for energy opportunities in Mississippi focuses on using available resources to attract businesses while expanding research and training more high-tech workers.

Register by Monday, Oct. 15 to Save $100! SSTI has extended early registration for our 16th Annual Conference in Atlanta until Monday, October 15! Register now to save at least $100 per registration! Join the more than 250 people who already have signed up for the conference!

Join us for the biggest and best conference yet. This year we are offering two full days of conference activities including 16 breakout sessions, four session tracks, three workshops and two networking receptions.

Register now...

Several federal agencies have joined forces to launch a new beta website that allows individuals to look at U.S. federal investments in science and engineering from two agencies — the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The R&D dashboard gives users the ability to search and download data on grants issued by the federal government to research institutions (investments) and on output activities (e.g., patents and publications) from federally funded research by state, congressional district and research institution. Users also may search investments and outputs by select topic areas at the same geographic levels of detail.

A requirement of the 2002 eGov Act, the government intends for the full version of the website to include data from all federal R&D spending. It also would expand information on outputs of federally funded research. The public is encouraged to review the beta site and provide feedback. Visit the website at: http://rd-dashboard.nitrd.gov/.

Manufacturers across the nation celebrated National Manufacturing Day on Friday and the topic on many people's minds was reshoring. Earlier this week, General Motors announced it will build a software development center in Michigan, joining a number of companies like Google, Caterpillar, GE and Ford who all have revealed plans to make products in the U.S. previously outsourced or purchased overseas. Although the prospect of a reshoring trend and resurgence in U.S. manufacturing has been a topic of debate, there are still skeptics who say the evidence of this movement is highly anecdotal and the U.S. still faces a future of offshoring.

The Air Force Research Laboratory announced that it will commit up to $2.2 million, plus up to an additional $2.2 million in matching funds collected by the recipient organization, to establish a National Nano-Bio Manufacturing Institute for Defense Aerospace, a virtual public-private partnership to spur collaborate research in industrially-relevant nano-bio manufacturing technologies and establish developmental roadmaps for the aerospace manufacturing community. Existing or near-established nonprofit organizations, including institutions of higher education, are eligible to apply. Proposals are due by November 13, 2012. Read the federal funding announcement...

Angel investment activity continues to recover from the crash that hit startup capital markets in late 2008, according to the latest report from the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research (UNH CVR). During the first half of 2012, the number of ventures receiving angel funding grew by a modest 3.7 percent over the same period in 2011. Healthcare remains the dominant target of angel investments, comprising about a quarter of angel dollars into the first half of the year. Internet sector investments, however, dominate angel group investments, according to the recent Halo Report on angel group activity.

Total investments by angels in the first half of the year reached $9.2 billion in 27,280 companies, according to the UNH CVR report. Both angel investment dollars and deals modestly grew over the first half of 2011, increasing by 3.1 percent and 3.7 percent respectively. The number of individual investors reached 131,145, a 5 percent increase over the previous year. Average deal size remained steady.

At the upcoming SSTI Annual Conference in Atlanta, SSTI staff will present on the role foundations have played in support of Venture Development Organizations (VDOs), accelerators, and other regional economic development organizations. Through research and interviews with various foundations, SSTI staff have identified nearly 200 examples of foundation grants to organizations that support a regional innovation system. Some of the major providers include the Kauffman Foundation, Benedum Foundation, Knight Foundation, McCune Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and the Cleveland Foundation. The grant amounts have considerable range, from $5,000 to $10 million, with an average grant over $350,000 but a median of $138,000. Many of the grants are more modest in scale, with 35 of the grants less than $25,000.

Register for the SSTI Conference...

In 2012, Big Data has become one of the hottest topics in the news and the minds of both government and business leaders. Big Data is the collection and analysis of data that is too big, growing too fast or is too complex for existing information technology systems to handle. Proponents believe that Big Data provides business, government and other organizations (e.g., nonprofit and social enterprises) the potential to generate high quality insight that enable better decision making, increase productivity, reduce inefficiencies, create new products and services and spur economic growth. In an OPED for informationweek.com, Jonathan Feldman contends existing Big Data projects already are creating social and economic value for business firms and regions, including now-ubiquitous projects such as Google Maps.

As a part of its Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy intervention, the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research released a report entitled Fiscal Incentives for Business R&D. The authors advocate how a fiscal incentive for R&D, particularly a tax credit, can be a "flexible instrument that can foster the connectivity within a national innovation system."

When considering the construction or retooling of an R&D tax incentive, policymakers must consider the general purpose of the incentive, who it is meant to benefit and target, what to do with unused claims and other aspects of incentive's design. The authors created a typology based on former and current innovation policies in various countries throughout the world, particularly in Europe. The report outlines the various design features policymakers must consider when designing and implementing an R&D tax credit.

At SSTI's 16th Annual Conference, you will have the opportunity to explore comprehensive, flexible programs and innovative, "lean" models to support and cultivate faculty entrepreneurs. Join National Science Foundation's Rathindra "Babu" DasGupta, the University of North Carolina's Judith Cone and Marnie LaVigne from the University at Buffalo as they discuss what universities need to do to create a class of Faculty CEOs. Learn more about this session...

In an effort to develop domestic renewable energy production, the Department of the Interior released details on the Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). PEIS provides an outline for utility-scale solar energy development in six states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

The statement creates 17 Solar Energy Zones across those states, which comprise 285,000 acres of public land with the potential for future land additions. At capacity, nearly 24,000 megawatts of energy could be produced, powering 7 million houses. In addition, 19 million acres of additional land was noted for possible solar energy development outside of the Solar Energy Zones, as well as a process for mitigation, and the exclusion of nearly 80 million acres from the project for the protection of natural and cultural sites.

Read more...

Unless Congress and the White House take action by the end of the year, across-the-board spending reductions will go into effect for all federal agencies as a result of provisions in the Budget Control Act of 2011. The budget sequestration would reduce defense discretionary funding by 9.4 percent and non-defense funding by 8.2 percent from the 2011 baseline. Though the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) report outlining these reductions does not provide details by program, research and economic development spending could be affected disproportionately, since, in many agencies, these programs are supported through discretionary spending.