SSTI Digest

Our German isn't what it should be and online translators weren't as helpful as we'd expected, but we wanted to make readers aware of the size of the investment Berlin is making over the next four years to recruit star faculty to its four research universities and the four local, private research institutions of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Helmholtzgemeinschaft, Leibniz Community, and the Max Planck Society. Termed the Berlin International Forum for Excellence, the initiative is intended to strengthen the competitiveness of the region's scientific assets in promising fields of research.

To help put the size of the investment into perspective, Berlin had a population of 3.4 million in 2006.

Science covered the announcement briefly at: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/610/1

Last week, Premier Ed Stelmach of Alberta introduced a $170 million suite of initiatives to support high-tech economic development in the province. The government hopes that by providing support for commercialization from research to market it can attract high-tech entrepreneurs from other areas. Most of the province's investment will support the creation of the $100 million Alberta Enterprise Corporation to encourage venture capital investment. A press release accompanying the announcement states that the investment will improve access to both seed-stage and venture capital. The corporation is expected to begin activities this winter.
 
Though venture capital investment in Canada increased by 21 percent in 2007 over 2006, investment in Alberta grew by only 3 percent. As in the U.S., the Canadian venture capital activity is largely centered in a few provinces, namely Ontario, Quebec, and to a lesser extent British Columbia. Private capital resources are harder to find in the more rural provinces like Alberta.
 

On June 5, 2008, the government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg announced plans for a $200 million five-year molecular medicine initiative that draws on a strategic partnership involving three Luxembourg Public Research Centers (CRPs), the University of Luxembourg and three U.S. research institutes prominent in the field.
 
The U.S. research institutions include:

• Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, led by Dr. Jeffrey Trent;
• Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle, led by Dr. Leroy Hood; and,
• Partnership for Personalized Medicine (PPM) led by Dr. Leland Hartwell, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center also in Seattle.

Three interrelated projects are involved in the plans: a biobank, a center for systems biology and Project Lung Cancer.
 

During the 1990s, especially the mid- to late-part of the decade, many countries experienced booms in their high-tech and venture capital industries. Few, however, grew at the same pace as Israel.
 
Israeli entrepreneurs created eight times as many high-tech companies during the 1990s than in the previous decade and equity investment in Israeli start-ups grew from $50 million to $6.65 billion. The number of venture capital companies in the country jumped from two in 1990 to about 100 in 2000.
 
In "From Direct Support of Business Sector R&D/Innovation to Targeting Venture Capital/Private Equity: A Catching-Up Innovation and Technology Policy Life Cycle Perspective," Gil Avnimelech and Morris Teubal explore this phenomenal growth and how the Israeli government effectively intervened and bolstered the venture capital economy.
 

The Canadian Government this week released its budget for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, which includes several new TBED-related initiatives and increases in funding for a few existing programs. The government plans to leverage its relatively strong fiscal position by providing tax relief and paying down the national debt, while providing $606 million for workforce development and $440 for research over the next two years. Major science and technology (S&T) initiatives in the 2008 budget include:

• $140 million for Genome Canada to develop the country's genetic research and workforce;
• $250 million over five years for research in the automotive sector, including greener and more fuel-efficient vehicles;
• $250 million to research and commercialize carbon capture and storage technologies;

Earlier this month, three universities - Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Berkeley - announced partnerships with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a graduate-level research university set to open in Saudi Arabia by September 2009. Each of the U.S.-based universities will assist with the development of the following initiatives within specific academic fields of study at KAUST:

Venture capitalists invested almost $2.5 billion in China in 2007, according to a new report from Dow Jones VentureSource. That figure is a 5 percent increase over the 2006, and the highest since 2001, despite a decrease in the number of deals. Though investment is not growing quite as quickly as it is in the U.S., where venture investment rose by 8 percent last year, China is becoming a key global market for venture investment.

 

The decrease in the number of deals appears to be a sign of a maturing venture capital industry, according to the VentureSource report. Though seed and first-round investments still constitute 61 percent of the country's venture deals, more investors are looking at companies in their second round of financing or later. Fifty percent of total investment went to these later-stage companies. Second-round investment dollars increased by 15 percent over the previous year. Deal size may be decreasing as firms devote more money to investment in relatively mature companies.

 

The following overview is a synopsis of selected recent announcements from research parks across the nation, including new tenants, groundbreakings and tools for financing start-up companies.

                       

The chemical company BASF announced in January a $1 million contribution to the Brazosport College Foundation for construction of a new process technology center at the school’s planned Science Technology Corridor. The new facility will include analytical labs and classrooms for curriculum supporting the petrochemical, energy and nuclear energy. The BASF center groundbreaking is expected this summer as the first phase of the Science Technology Corridor, which will also include a health professions and science technology complex with laboratories, classrooms and department offices for health professions programs.

 

Earlier this month, the Canadian Minister of Industry announced the establishment of 11 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs) to pursue multidisciplinary work in the areas of environmental science, natural resources and energy, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies. This $163 million investment joins a $105 million investment last year that created seven other CECRs across Canada.

 

The CECR initiative is a component of Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy (see the May 21, 2007 issue of the Digest) and is administered by the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program. Organizations that are eligible for CECR funding are nonprofit corporations formed by universities, research organizations, private firms or other nongovernmental parties. The average grant size for each CECR was around $15 million, to be distributed over 3-5 years.

 

Four of the 11 new centers are based in Vancouver:

Transforming as many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as possible into globally competitive firms is a challenge, as most TBED practitioners know. The complexity of combining all of Europe into a single market makes the work even more daunting.

 

To simplify the process for SMEs in more than 40 countries, the European Commission recently launched a consolidated Enterprise Europe Network. The network consolidates the older Euro Info Centres and the Innovation Relay Centres.

 

According to promotional materials, assistance services offered by the network include a business partner search within technology and business cooperation databases and access to information on funding opportunities. Network experts will provide “individual on-site visits to companies to assess their needs and a broad range of promotion and information material. Representatives of the network can also help businesses understand EU law, how it applies to their business and how to make the most the internal market and EU programs.”

 

Brenda Wyland will join the Research & Technology Park Inc. at North Dakota State University as the incubator manager, effective Feb. 1, 2008.