SSTI Digest

Ban on Outside Consulting with Industry Remains in Force

Last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced final regulations regarding reporting of certain financial interests, stock divestiture, outside activities, and awards. The announcement came following a careful review of all comments about the interim ethics regulation submitted by NIH staff, the public, and scientific organizations. The changes, considered sweeping by most media reports and policy analysts, were first proposed in early February (see the Feb. 7, 2005 issue of the Digest.).

Three principles guided the crafting of the rules:

Many of the readers are new to the Digest since last year's conference, so we're getting questions about how SSTI's upcoming 9th annual conference, to be held in Atlanta on Oct. 19-21, differs from other events.

The easiest way to answer that is to let the conference speak for itself — through the comments we received from past participants:

"The most relevant conference I’ve attended in the last five years. Great mix of people — connected to others with similar interest that will give me a resource base."

“Outstanding organization and right on target topically. The value you deliver attracts an audience that is such a great balance of academics and practitioners in TBED.”

"I emerged from this session with eagerness to get back to work on linking research to regional economic development!”

Following the 1998 Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement, states across the country set out to dedicate significant amounts of funding from their share of the settlement to support research and other TBED programs.

On Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, the Economic Development Administration will host a one-hour telecast, to discuss the final report of the Strengthening America’s Communities Advisory Committee.

The telecast will feature members of the Strengthening America’s Communities Advisory Committee to discuss recommendations on the planning and successful implementation of the President’s Strengthening America’s Communities Initiative (SACI) (see the July 25 issue of the Digestfor SSTI review). The report is now public and is available at the SACI website at www.doc.gov/SACI

For more information on the positions below, visit SSTI's online Job Corner at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

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.