SSTI Digest

With the proper utilization of existing resources, the development of key new programs, strong leadership within state government and coordinated efforts among all programs and stakeholders, Kentucky has the opportunity to become a world leader in specific niches of the life sciences industry, says a report from the Governor's Life Sciences Consortium.

The consortium, created in July 2004 by Gov. Ernie Fletcher, is comprised of experts in professional, entrepreneurial, governmental, and academic fields. The group recently released a strategic plan for positioning Kentucky a leader among states and regions in the life sciences by focusing on four key areas: natural products, medical devices, health technology services, and niche pharmaceuticals and niche biotechnology.

Cluster theories for explaining geographically distinct areas of economic activity have guided state and local economic development policy to varying degrees for the past 25 years. Encouraging cluster growth will be hot in one state’s strategies to encourage growth while cooling or completely absent from its neighbors.

The confusion as to what works and what doesn’t for cluster development extends well beyond the level of  practitioner, however. The more abstract and theoretical world of academic research also suffers from muddled language in attempts to be original and shared terms with more than one meaning.

It essentially boils down to one man’s cluster is not necessarily another’s.

When it comes to managing a portfolio of programs, do you know what really works to ensure they will have the most impact for building a tech-based economy? "Maximizing Impact: Evaluating Science and Technology Programs," one of four full-day pre-conference workshops to be held at SSTI's 9th Annual conference on Oct. 19-21, 2005, strives to answer the question.

Designed for those advanced in the field, this engaging workshop will examine the programmatic and political effectiveness of different evaluation models, dissecting applied evaluation tools to assess their replicability across states and regions. One of several objectives for the day is to give attendees the evaluation research design tools they need for building sophisticated evaluations. The session will focus on:

There is increasing speculation that China's surge in the global economy is unsustainable, in part, because of its debt (see the Aug. 22, 2005 issue of Business Week). Closer to home, others point out, with the addition of the recent record U.S. budget deficits, America’s national debt will be too burdensome on generations X and Y and whatever letter comes next.

But at "only" $7.9 trillion (most recent figure), the federal government can write smaller IOUs than its citizens can, according to a March 2005 brief by the Center for Retirement Research.

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne named Idaho National Lab Director John Grossenbacher as the new chairman of the Governor's Science & Technology Advisory Council.

Chandler Howard, co-president of Bank of America, is leaving to become president and CEO of Connecticut Innovations.

Peter McPherson, president emeritus of Michigan State University, is the next president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne named Idaho National Lab Director John Grossenbacher as the new chairman of the Governor's Science & Technology Advisory Council.

Chandler Howard, co-president of Bank of America, is leaving to become president and CEO of Connecticut Innovations.

Peter McPherson, president emeritus of Michigan State University, is the next president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

If the innovation powerhouse that represents the U.S. economy for the past century were a cinder block foundation of a house, then China and India would present two of the more significant cracks. These two great nations may grab the headlines, but the improved innovation and research capacities of any country provide new challenges for continued U.S. domination of the world's economy. As this week's article on the Czech Republic and Singapore reveals, these are just two more blocks in the U.S. wall to show stress fractures.

"Now, hold on SSTI," you may be saying to yourself. "You want me to lose sleep over the smaller economies, too?" Worry and lose sleep? No. But we do want more people to wake up to what's going on in the basement.

A comprehensive survey of 12,000 departments within 591 institutions of higher education in the U.S. reveals that, in 2003, graduate student enrollment in S&E programs increased by 4 percent over the previous year and 9 percent over the past decade. Foreign student enrollment, however, decreased 8 percent in 2003 after falling 6 percent the year before.

While the U.S. commitment to science is threatened by flattening federal R&D investments, two more countries demonstrate their shared belief that the way to economic prosperity is through science and innovation.

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic has outlined a five-year economic development plan that calls for doubling R&D's share of the gross domestic product by 2010. To achieve that goal requires increasing government spending for science and innovation by 20-25 percent annually, according to Martin Jahn, deputy prime minister for the economy.

Should policymakers focus on urban core centers as keys to economic growth or seek greater economic equity in the less developed periphery? A new study on regional policy and economic geography suggest policies should be directed toward core growth.

In New Economic Geography, Empirics, and Regional Policy, the authors examine historic development patterns in Europe and test a new geographic model with time series data. Authors Steven Brakman, Harry Garretsen, Joeri Gorter, Albert van der Horst, and Marc Schramm conclude that economic activity quickly balances in favor of existing central clusters regardless of policies. In fact, policies focused on building regional infrastructure, as a way to pull commerce into less developed regions, often results in drawing activity back to core areas over time.

The study highlights the following policy-related conclusions: