SSTI Digest

Listen or read the business news media and the dreaded “R” word, recession, is back in common parlance. State revenue cycles seem to feel it first. Already, with more than a dozen states projecting budget deficits for both current and coming fiscal years, it seems certain: Spending cuts in programs and services and/or tax increases are imminent. The nationwide housing market slump, the rising cost of energy and health care, and increased state spending are cited as a just a few of the reasons for shortfalls in state budgets. The lack of a fiscal year 2008 federal budget, now nearly one-quarter over, does not help state fiscal planning.

 

Although Missouri frequently ranks in the top 20 states for federal research grants and academic R&D, the state consistently ranks much lower in the creation of new high-tech companies. A recent report by Dr. Mark Parry of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Bloch School of Business suggests that early-stage high-tech entrepreneurs and companies have been unable to secure sufficient capital to launch successful ventures. Part of this capital deficit has been due to a lack of state investment in capital formation and access programs, he contends. While neighboring states spent an average of $2.79 per resident in 2006 on capital formation initiatives and similar states such as Arizona, Ohio and Minnesota spent $2.94, Missouri spent only $0.10. Parry argues that this lack of spending has contributed to the state's persistent difficulty in translating its intellectual capital into new companies.

 

Three major announcements were made in Singapore last month focusing on R&D of new technologies and educating the workforce to produce specialized graduates in upcoming fields.

 

Development plans for Asia’s first zero-energy building (ZEB) were released by the Parliamentary Secretary for National Development. The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) will retrofit an existing building that will both house classrooms and offices and serve as a testbed for green technology research. Slated for completion in 2009, the ZEB is expected to be 60 percent more energy efficient than an average commercial building. The building will create a highly efficient complex that produces as much energy as it consumes from renewable resources.

 

One continuing challenge states and regions are attempting to overcome is adjusting their workforces in a rapidly changing, innovation-driven, global economy. The growing consensus emerging from many people examining science and technology competitiveness is that U.S. students need to be academically stronger in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields than they are today and that the supply of graduates with a science background needs to increase. This advice comes as other countries around the world, with populations large and small, pursue this same strategy to increase the quality and quantity of future workers with backgrounds in science and technology.

 

In response to this challenge, education policies and new initiatives at the federal, state and local levels are focusing on the preparation of students for careers in science and engineering (S&E) fields. However, a report released in October questions if enacting policies to increase the number of STEM students and improve the quality of students are the most efficient means to supply the S&E workforce.

Nearly 700 new products resulting from university research handled by technology transfer offices reached the marketplace in FY 2006, according to the latest Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) Survey of U.S. Licensing Activity released this week.

 

The 189 research performing institutions that participated in the survey also reported the creation of 553 start-ups during the year and almost 5,000 new licensing relationships with companies.

 

The AUTM survey provides core data for most of the empirical analysis of university tech transfer efforts. As such, it has drawn criticism in the past for what is not measured – a common complaint for measuring the impact of nearly all research and economic activity. For instance, the National Science Foundation continues to invest considerable staff time and financial resources into developing better measures of an innovation-based economy.