SSTI Digest

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley recently announced a plan to launch an advanced robotics research, training and education center to prepare workers for the robotics industry and attract high-tech employers to the state. Calhoun Community College in Decatur will host the $71 million center, in partnership with the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Gov. Riley first proposed the robotics campus in 2006 and believes the center will help increase the state’s profile as a leader in the robotics industry. In addition to training facilities, the center will also provide support for the applied research activities of Redstone Arsenal, which houses several U.S. Army directorates, and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
 

This summer, 12 former CEOs with substantial experience in raising venture capital and no particular ties to clean energy will participate in an extensive curriculum-based fellowship program designed to rapidly transition them into a leadership role, in order to help grow the cleantech cluster in the New England region.

The announcement from the New England Clean Energy Council follows a recent report identifying strategies for the region to capitalize on $1 billion in incremental investment over the next four years in clean energy and prevail as a nationally recognized cleantech cluster. Through interviews with area venture capitalists, the report finds that of the three factors that go into creating a cluster, lack of entrepreneurial talent in the field is the most significant barrier in New England.

Despite a growing national demand for their skills, the number of engineers graduating from American colleges went down in 2007, according to latest edition of Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges, prepared by the American Society for Engineering Education.
 
The decline in engineering bachelor’s degrees was the first since the 1990s, ending seven years of growth. Although the drop was small ­ 1.2 percent from the previous year ­ ASEE fears it is the beginning of a trend that may continue for several years. That’s because undergraduate enrollment dropped both in 2004 and 2005.
 
Engineering master’s degrees show an even sharper drop than bachelor’s degrees, having declined 8.8 percent since 2005. Ph.D. degrees, by contrast, have been growing an average of 11 percent since 2004.
 
The pain is not being felt uniformly across all sectors of engineering; aerospace and biomedical engineering have shot up in popularity while electrical and computer engineering have fallen.
 

While California and Massachusetts may overshadow much of the venture capital (VC) activity going on around the country, other states have made significant progress in developing venture industries that serve the needs of their economy. Though larger investments in later-stage companies are becoming more prevalent in the U.S. venture industry, some states are seeing increases in smaller, early-stage investments that, if successful, should lead to significant growth in their total VC investment in years to come. Breaking down per capita venture investment by stage reveals states like Maryland, Washington, Colorado and the District of Columbia are building capital industries that service the needs of early-stage entrepreneurs.

As a group, the country’s metropolitan areas face substantial long-term challenges as large gaps in issues such as productivity growth, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion separate the leaders from the laggards. Earlier this month, the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program released the second of its “core” reports from its Blueprint for American Prosperity initiative to lay out an economic agenda for U.S. metro areas.
 
In MetroPolicy: Shaping a New Federal Partnership for a Metropolitan Nation, Brookings outlines how leaders are driving gains in prosperity in their regions and how other countries are nurturing metro areas. Brookings kicked off its Blueprint initiative last November (see the Nov. 7, 2007 issue of the Digest), exactly one year before the date of the upcoming presidential election.
 

SBIR Phase II awards with additional personal and/or internal business funding are more significant predictors of a technology reaching commercialization than SBIR awards with venture capital, external private equity or foreign investment, and funding from state and local governments or universities, new research shows.
 
In Bringing Science to Market: Commercializing from NIH SBIR Awards, Albert Link and Christopher Ruhm of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro present the results of their analysis, considering the long-term results of 405 National institutes of Health (NIH) SBIR Phase II awards over the 10-year period 1992-2001.
 
Of the 405 projects, which were taken from nearly 2,500 SBIR Phase II awards NIH funded during the period, 59 percent received some additional form of funding. Upon further examination, 74 percent of commercialized projects received some type of additional development funding at some point, whereas only 42 percent of the non-commercialized projects received funding.
 

NorTech is inviting all SSTI conference attendees to an opening reception at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Tuesday, Oct. 14, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Just like the music it pays homage to, inside and out, the Rock Hall exudes coolness. From the adventurously wide-open architecture and eye-popping displays to the sing-along soundtrack of continuously streaming rock and roll hits, this is one museum experience that really gets your heart pumping.

Adding to the excitement, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, director of the Ohio Department of Development, will provide brief remarks on the importance of state government investments in technology-based economic development (TBED) and Ohio’s model for investing in TBED, including the $1.6 billion Ohio Third Frontier project. Lt. Gov. Fisher also will highlight Ohio’s Thomas Edison Program, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and address how the Ohio Third Frontier and Edison programs have helped the state evolve a broader set of TBED strategies and programs to move Ohio’s economy forward.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

The University of Kentucky is seeking an executive director for its new Office of Technology Transfer (OTT). This position is responsible for the oversight of the university’s growing intellectual property and data base system. The executive director provides the overall leadership, management and administration of OTT, executing its assessment, negotiating and licensing functions. The position requires an M.B.A. (preferred), J.D. (desirable) or other advanced degree, with at least 10 years of experience in industry and in a university setting dealing with patent protection, licensing and compliance.

President Bush announced he will nominate Assistant Secretary of Commerce Sandy Baruah to serve as the administrator of the Small Business Administration.

The Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce has created the Economic Development Partnership to help businesses relocate to or expand in the county.

Barbara Fleisner has been hired as executive director of Centergy, the Central Wisconsin Alliance for Economic Development.

Dr. Lee Herron has joined the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) as vice president of commercialization. Herron previously was general manager, Biosciences, for the Advanced Technology Development Center.

Linden Rhoads was named vice provost of the University of Washington's TechTransfer department. Rhoads replace Jim Severson, who left to join a start-up company.

A little more than a year after unveiling a comprehensive proposal to provide crucial funding for R&D, commercialization and infrastructure to position Massachusetts as a global leader in life sciences, Gov. Deval Patrick signed an historic 10-year, $1 billion life sciences investment package, transforming the ambitious idea into reality.
 
The signing of the bill coincides with BIO’s annual meeting, currently underway in San Diego – the same event during which the governor unveiled the proposal last year. With a typical draw of more than 20,000, the event provides an opportune backdrop for the governor, legislative and industry leaders to promote the state to biotech companies and investors.

Gov. Martin O’Malley announced this week a proposal to build Maryland's reputation as a global leader in biosciences with a $1.1 billion investment.
 
Similar to the recently enacted Massachusetts Life Sciences bill (see this week’s issue of the Digest), the Bio 2020 Initiative is a long-term strategy requiring legislative approval that invests in start-up companies and increases funding for R&D. Gov. O’Malley hopes to leverage $6.3 billion in private and federal investments and create thousands of new jobs, according to a press release.
 
Speaking to a group of higher education leaders and investors at the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, Gov. O’Malley outlined the nine major components of the Bio 2020 Initiative:

• Creating the Maryland Biotechnology Center to serve as a “one stop shop” to promote and support biotechnology innovation and entrepreneurship;

In its latest bio-industry analyses, Ernst & Young reported that the global bioscience industry has yet to become profitable, but that doesn’t mean the field isn’t growing by many measures, particularly the number of jobs created. Technology, Talent and Capital: State Bioscience Initiatives 2008, prepared by Battelle for BIO, puts total U.S. employment in the biosciences at 1.3 million in 2006, up from 1.2 million in 2004.
 
Bioscience employment in the U.S. is led by strong growth in the research, testing and medical lab subsector, which experienced a 17.8 percent increase in employment and a 32.7 percent increase in establishments between 2001 and 2006, according to the report. And most states are working hard to ensure some of that economic development impact happens within their borders.