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SSTI Digest
Recent Research: SBA: New Businesses Have Greatest Impact on Economic Growth
A recent study completed for the Small Business Administration (SBA) concludes that small business establishment births are the single-largest determinant of the growth rate of gross state product (GSP), state personal income, and total state employment using data from the years 1988-2002. The authors contend state efforts to promote the creation of small businesses will generate more economic growth then any other policy option included in their models. They calculated that increasing small business births by 5 percent increased the growth of the gross state product by 0.47 percent. These same conclusions would have been reached if small businesses were defined as having less than 500 employees or less than 100 employees, the study indicates.
Top Countries Shuffle Spots for Most Patents
Rapid growth in the number of international patents filed by northeast Asian nations during 2006 has resulted in a shift of positions for the top-performing nations, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). With 34.1 percent, the U.S. maintained its global dominance with 49,555 patent filings. The figure represents an increase of 6.1 percent over America’s 2005 total; the U.S. rate of growth is slower than the 6.4 percent growth in total world filings.
Japan, maintaining its second place position, filed 26,906 patent applications, 18.5 percent of the global total of 145,300. Germany remained in third with 11.7 percent of the total.
Knight Foundation Funds Creative Community Initiative
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in partnership with the Richard Florida Creativity Group (RFCG), recently announced the formation of the Knight Creative Communities Initiative in three metropolitan areas of the country: Charlotte; Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wisc.; and, Tallahassee. The goal of the initiative, utilizing Dr. Florida’s theories on the importance of creativity and innovation for economic growth, is to produce through community dialogue a vision to enhance each region’s environment for ingenuity.
Useful Stats: NIH Awards by State, FY 2001-05
Increasing federal funding for life science research is one of the most significant ingredients for improving a state’s position in building a strong biotech and biomedical sector. As appropriations for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were increasing annually – as they did in the last half of the 1990s and the first few years of this decade – this was not a zero-sum game. All states could win.
That is less likely to be the case if increases in NIH appropriations barely keep pace with inflation as Congress and the Administration shift research priorities toward other areas of science and engineering.
So how did everyone do during times of plenty? To answer this, SSTI has compiled a table of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards in total dollars and state rankings from fiscal years 2001-05. The states, ranked by percent change over the five-year period, show South Dakota (132.28), Louisiana (115.52), Montana (113.13), Indiana (96.61) and North Dakota (96.60) posted the greatest gains.
SSTI Job Corner
Complete descriptions of the position openings described below are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.
The Allegheny Conference on Community Development, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing private sector leadership to grow the economy and improve the quality of life in the 10-county Pittsburgh region, is seeking a senior vice president for its Workforce Quality Program. This position represents an opportunity to work at the highest levels of corporate, government and community leadership to ensure the Pittsburgh region develops a skilled workforce of sufficient size and quality to satisfy the needs of businesses. A postgraduate degree and 10-plus years of relevant experience are required.
People
With new governors often come changes in the leadership of state economic development organizations. Arkansas, Colorado and Maryland recently announced their new development officers:
People
With new governors often come changes in the leadership of state economic development organizations. Arkansas, Colorado and Maryland recently announced their new development officers:
- David Edgerley is the new secretary of the Maryland Department of Economic Development.
- Donald Elliman, Jr. is the new director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development.
- Maria Haley has been appointed director of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development.
People
Catherine Renault is the new director for the Maine Office of Innovation within the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development.
People
Jim Rice, with the Information Technology Association of Wisconsin, announced his departure as the organization’s first president.
SSTI Editorial: FY08 Budget Request: Research Up; Economic Development Down
When one looks beyond the first few pages of many sections of the agencies’ fiscal year 2008 budget request summaries, the mental concept of a television rerun appears. As SSTI staff pored through the budget this week, several found ourselves saying, “Didn’t we read the same thing last year?”
In many cases, we did. And why not? Congress failed to consider most of the president’s budget proposals for FY 2007 when the same political party ruled the executive and legislative branches, so why not float the ideas again when power is split? Could they fare any worse than FY07 when so few budget priorities have emerged?
Now some will say hold on. That could be a little too harsh an assessment of what’s going on in FY07. There are a few highlights this budget go-around:
Special Initiative: The American Competitiveness I
In fiscal year 2008, President Bush proposes $11.42 billion total to support the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) across the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE SC), and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories (NIST). This reflects an overall funding increase of $764 million, or 7.2 percent, above his proposed 2007 ACI Research Budget of $10.66 billion.
As a centerpiece of ACI, the president plans to double, over 10 years, investment in innovation-enabling research across the three federal agencies:
Special Initiative: Climate Change
In this year’s State of the Union Address, President Bush announced that his FY 2008 budget request would contain funding to support research to eliminate the projected growth of automobile carbon dioxide emission within 10 years. The key agency in the president’s effort is the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), which would receive $1.54 billion under the proposed FY08 budget. While stating the area was a priority in the address, the current request is approximately $109 million less than the FY07 request (6.5 percent decrease). Most of the decrease is explained by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as being a result of NASA no longer considering its Ground Network and Research Range a part of CCSP.