SSTI Digest

Accelerators, incubators and entrepreneurial assistance programs work to ensure their startups understand their product’s market competition, customers, and supply chain. As it turns out, that’s also good advice for small research-based firms trying to move from SBIR proof-of-concept funding to securing the larger Phase II awards. A survey of approximately 250 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awardees by researchers finds market information from suppliers, customers, and competitors to be key for small entrepreneurial firms to increase publicly funded research and development (R&D) effectiveness.

Each summer, the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy distributes a memorandum to all of the executive departments and agencies that are planning to request any research and development funding for a future federal fiscal year that touches on issues or interests that cross multiple agencies. The memo outlines the highest R&D and innovation policy priorities for the administration. At nine pages and nearly twice as long as the Biden administration’s first such missive last year, the fiscal year 2024 memo, released July 22, 2022, reflects the more refined strategy one might expect as an administration matures. All themes are carried forward, most with greater detail, but additional priorities are also included.

The most significant addition is the goal of “reducing the death rate from cancer by half” over the next 25 years. Five focus areas are outlined for agencies to prioritize and collaborate on toward the Cancer Moonshot:

With the fiscal year coming to a close and the U.S. Senate having yet to advance any appropriations bills for the next year, the Senate Democrats have released their proposals for FY 2023 funding levels. Due to the potential for substantial changes when the final FY 2023 budget is passed, this article only covers specific funding levels that are a high priority for the tech-based economic development (TBED) field. Funding levels from the House Committee on Appropriations for FY 2023 and FY 2022 enacted amounts also are provided in parentheses for comparison purposes.

The recently published, 2022 edition of New America’s annual survey on American perceptions of higher education, Varying Degrees, includes findings that should be of interest – and potential concern – for the TBED community. The report includes updated findings on American perceptions of the value, funding, accountability, and admissions for higher education and perceptions of current financial security. It also reveals significant differences in perceptions of higher education based on respondents’ political affiliations.

The findings show that, in general, Americans continue to see the value of pursuing higher education. The report found that 64 percent recognize that postsecondary credentials will be required for economic security, and 76 percent believe higher education offers students a good return on investment. However, Republican and Democrat views on the value of higher education differ widely. According to the report, almost twice as many Democrats than Republicans (nearly 73 and 37 percent respectively), view colleges and universities as positively affecting their local communities.

Thirty two industry-led workforce training partnerships from across the country were announced as the grant winners of the $500 million Good Jobs Challenge by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Selected from 509 proposals, the regional partnerships are focused on removing barriers to training and are expected to increase more equitable labor participation with a focus on 15 key industries.

Good Jobs Challenge winners are expected to jumpstart the development and expansion of training programs that are tailored to each community. Awardees are located in 31 states and Puerto Rico.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced nine additional states whose SSBCI plans have been approved: Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Vermont. This is in addition to the five states approved earlier this year: Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan and West Virginia. The state plans for the awards will support underserved businesses, innovation programs, investing for startups and more, detailed below.

Arizona has been approved for $111 million across three different state programs. Two venture capital programs, Arizona Venture Co-Invest and Arizona Multi-Fund Venture, will split $87 million of the total approved funds. The rest of the allocated funds will go towards the Arizona Loan Guarantee Program. The three programs will all aim to support underserved businesses by creating greater access to capital. 

Amid a public market slowdown, inflation concerns and tightening monetary environment, the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2022 indicates that most investors continued their COVID-era levels of activity through the second quarter of the year. While observed investment deal counts are down, PitchBook has already identified a total investment value of more than $144 billion across angel, seed and VC deals for the first half of 2022 — an amount that would have represented a strong annual total prior to 2021.

This interpretation of the data depends on PitchBook’s estimates of deal activity, which report what the platform believes occurred during the quarter but will only appear in the data once more deals are disclosed. PitchBook typically experiences under-counts in recent quarters due to limited disclosure requirements for private investments.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is breaking with tradition this week and for the first time released application data before it formally accepts applications for the NSF Engines program, which will provide up to $160 million of funding for up to 10+ years to establish each regional-scale innovation ecosystem Engine. The nearly 700 concept outlines have been published to help submitters in preparing successful proposals, with the belief that the applications and subsequent Engines will be strengthened if applicants are able to find one another and collaborate. NSF has also announced the Type-2 award deadlines for the Regional Innovation Engines program.

This week, Congress approved a new version of legislation to incentivize semiconductor manufacturing facilities, create a Regional Technology Hubs program, and reauthorize many science-related agencies. The Senate passed the bill on the 27th, and the House passed the legislation a day later.

The bill’s latest nickname is “Chips and Science,” a reference to the presence of appropriations for semiconductor manufacturing incentives and R&D (previously authorized when the “CHIPS” act was added to the FY 2021 defense authorization bill), as well as many authorization provisions for other innovation and research activities that have previously been included in USICA and COMPETES. 

CHIPS funding

The CHIPS portion of the bill is the only part that would be funded at the time of its passage. These provisions include the following:

Entrepreneurs learned more about small business funding opportunities from federal agencies with Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs during America’s Seed Fund Week last week. The $4 billion funding program, which is currently up for reauthorization, is celebrating 40 years of providing funding to small businesses each year in a variety of technology areas. Videos, including advice from program managers, and resources from each participating federal agency are available online.

The week included America’s Seed Fund rebranding initiative, including the beta launch of their new website, which has been redesigned to be more informative and user friendly, along with a new Lab2Market Hub, which will connect users to sources of funding. 

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo led the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s (NACIE) first meeting since being re-established, where she charged the council with identifying and developing roadmaps for three “transformative achievements” that will “serve as the core of an American National Entrepreneurship Strategy” to “improve our prosperity and strengthen our economic and national security.” Once the moonshots are decided upon, Raimondo said the council will recommend how the country can develop the technologies to achieve the goals.

More specifically, the council has been tasked with providing recommendations on how to broadly support innovation and entrepreneurship, ranging from growing STEM workforces to removing barriers faced by entrepreneurs, reflective of NACIE’s goal of providing policy and legislative recommendations to further the innovation economy across the U.S.  

In fiscal year 2021, the nationwide success rate of applicants for National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I awards decreased slightly from FY 2020. This continued a downward trend over recent years. The success rate for NIH SBIR/STTR Phase I was nearly 13 percent (647 of 5,132 approved) in FY 2021, a decrease from nearly 14 percent (636 of 4,684 approved) in FY 2020 and from nearly 16 percent for all proposals submitted over the past decade.

SSTI’s analysis for this article is based on SBIR/STTR application and award data recently released by NIH.