SSTI Digest

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle recently signed several economic development bills intended to spur job creation and high-tech development. The new legislation authorizes additional job creation tax credits, expands the state's enterprise zones program and establishes new incentives for angel investors. Key among the bills is Wisconsin's CORE Jobs Act, which creates and expands a number of tax credits, loan and grant programs for manufacturing, R&D and venture capital investment. Bill sponsor State Senator Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point) noted that the CORE Jobs Act should help commercialize new technologies and convert existing factories into green energy manufacturing and production businesses.

Compiling SBIR Phase I awards and proposal statistics by state for FY09, SSTI finds the 10 states with the most awards in FY09 were California (853), Massachusetts (526), Virginia (239), New York (213), Maryland (209), Colorado (198), Texas (172), Ohio (168), Pennsylvania (154), and Florida (109). Compared to the top states for FY08, Maryland moved up one position to fifth place, swapping places with Colorado, which dropped to sixth place. Ohio edged out Pennsylvania to move up one spot into eighth position, pushing Pennsylvania down one spot from last year to ninth place.

Using figures provided by the individual federal agencies, SSTI has prepared a table showing FY09 Phase I SBIR data for all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Statistics include awards, proposals and award-to-proposal conversion rates for 10 of the 12 participating agencies (the Department of Education and the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declined to provide proposal statistics). The table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/051910t.htm.

TBED People
Michael Burcham has been named the first president of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Burcham currently serves as a clinical faculty member at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management.

Austin Burke, longtime president of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, is being nominated secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Burke will replace George Cornelius, who is leaving his post to become the president of Bridgewater College in Virginia.

Former National Science Foundation official Deborah Crawford has been appointed Drexel University's vice provost for research. Crawford will begin her tenure at Drexel in September.

A jobs bill that garnered near unanimous support in both legislative chambers was signed into law by Gov. Jodi Rell last week. The bill includes pre-seed funding for innovative ideas, a program authorizing tax credits for insurers investing in many different types of businesses, including technology startups, student loan reimbursements to retain green collar workers, a small business loan pool, and a green manufacturing pilot program.

The enacted jobs bill includes several components introduced by Gov. Rell earlier this year as part of an economic recovery package (See the Feb. 10, 2010 issue of the Digest). Specifically, the new legislation:

Fifteen communities across the U.S. recently were selected to implement health information technology (IT) infrastructure and servicing as part of an overall $100 billion federal investment in science, innovation and technology through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. These pilot communities will receive a total $220 million for projects that include providing better control of blood pressure for diabetic and hypertensive patients, improvements in care coordination and chronic disease management, and reductions in preventable emergency department visits and re-hospitalizations. The goal of the Beacon Community program is to demonstrate that widespread adoption of health IT and exchange of health information is both feasible and improves care delivery and health outcomes, which in turn is expected to facilitate job creation in emerging industries. Read the announcement ...

A coalition of twelve private foundations will contribute $506 million to support U.S. education innovation and reform efforts. A portion of the contribution will be designated to match funds from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing In Innovation Fund (i3), which offers grants to local agencies, nonprofits and school districts to support innovative education initiatives. Find out more about the fund ...

During the first year of the current U.S. recession, the bioscience industry continued to create jobs, according to a recent report from the Battelle Memorial Institute and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). While overall employment fell by 0.7 percent in 2008, U.S. bioscience employment grew 1.4 percent. Though the authors acknowledge that the full impact of the crisis was not felt until 2009 (for which employment data is not yet available), evidence indicates that biotech companies were not as negatively affected as other firms. In fact, several performance indices of publicly-traded biotech companies indicate that the industry has grown since October 2007, something no other sector in S&P 500 has done.

Between 2001 and 2008, bioscience employment grew 15.8 percent, 4.5 times more than the overall economy. Bioscience wages also are outpacing national private sector wage growth. Since 2001, real earnings in the bioscience industry have increased 10.1 percent, reaching $77,595 in 2008. Other private sector jobs grew only 3.2 percent during that period.

A recent report from the National Science Foundation (NSF) shows that funding for general science and basic research grew by 17.5 percent between 2008 and 2010. The report divides federal R&D funding into 20 categories defined by their function. Basic research comprises 7.2 percent of the proposed FY10 budget, up from 6.2 percent in the actual FY08 budget. Meanwhile, national defense, the leading target of federal R&D funding, dropped from 59 percent of total funding to 57 percent. Read the report ...

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear will host a conference sponsored by the Southern Technology Council exploring changing consumer demands and global competitions in the Southern automotive industry. The conference, titled Driving the Next 20 Years: Creating the New Automotive Industry in the South, will feature speakers from Toyota, Ford, Daimer and Nissan and panel discussions on auto R&D, site location and supporting the industry. The event will be held June 7-8 in Lexington, KY. Read more about the conference ...

A nationally recognized nonprofit organization creating economic transformation in Northeast Ohio, JumpStart Inc. provides resources to entrepreneurs leading high potential, early-stage companies. JumpStart CEO Ray Leach discusses how the organization has successfully partnered with regional organizations and philanthropic institutions to achieve its tremendous success. Download the interview ...

Automation Alley in Troy, MI is seeking a business accelerator client coordinator. Some of the responsibilities include managing business accelerator client process from intake to referral and ongoing client support, coordinating with shared services for administrative functions and maintaining accurate SalesForce information for all clients.