SSTI Digest

There is an opportunity to turbocharge U.S. innovation by addressing barriers to collaboration between research universities and industry, according to Sheila Martin, vice president of economic development and community engagement at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). Details on the value universities can provide to industry in partnership are explained in APLU’s report, Driving U.S. Competitiveness Through Improved University-Industry Partnerships. It also includes policies lawmakers can take to foster stronger university-industry partnerships.

A recent analysis by PitchBook attempts to assess whether venture capital funds that specialize in a specific technology sector outperform generalist VCs or VCs that are targeted but not quite “specialized.” In short, the answer is no, at least as measured by financial return.

PitchBook’s assessment of funds created in 1996-2015 shows that the returns (both in the form of ROI and total value relative to investment) are largely similar and with no long-term trend toward one investment strategy or the other.

The last of the governors have delivered their State of the State addresses. With 36 gubernatorial elections this fall, many governors appeared to be more conservative in their addresses this year, speaking more about past accomplishments rather than rolling out new programs. This week features comments from California, Louisiana, Nevada and Ohio’s governors as their addresses related to the innovation economy.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (March 8)

Gov. Gavin Newsom talked about transformation in the state’s public education system, including free community college.

“Infrastructure, research and development, investing in our conveyor belt for talent, the finest system of higher education anywhere in the world: our CSUs, UCs and community colleges. And ensuring society provides a hand up when people need help, maintaining, maintaining our pro-immigrant policies and welcoming refugees from around the world.”

This month, President Joe Biden announced the final rule of his Buy American initiative, which includes increasing the mandated U.S.-made content for federal contractors from 55 percent to 75 percent over seven years and strengthening domestic supply chains for critical goods. This final rule follows Executive Order 14005, which Biden signed during his first week in office that launched a review of existing Buy American policies and created the first Made in America Office within the Office of Management and Budget.

Today the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) awarded nearly $21 million for 21 projects impacting 211 counties through its POWER (Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization) Initiative, with many of the awards supporting innovation initiatives. The new projects will support entrepreneurship, workforce development and infrastructure among other efforts to create jobs, expand job and skills training, and attract new private investment in Appalachian communities affected by the downturn of the coal industry.

The Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC) released its 2022 R&D Index earlier this week. The 2022 R&D Index, which is one component of ISTC’s Illinois Innovation Index, assesses Illinois’s capacity for innovation and economic growth amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The last R&D Index released by ISTC was in 2019.

Among the key findings of the report:

• Illinois ranked 10th in the nation in terms of total R&D activity at universities, Federally Funded R&D Centers (FFRDCs), businesses, and other institutions.
• Statewide R&D activity increased by $1.1 billion between 2018 and 2019, according to NSF data.
• R&D intensity in Illinois increased between 2018 and 2019 to 2.05 percent.

Illinois companies spent $14.1 billion on R&D and patent production in 2019, while research funding at universities in Illinois was $2.8 billion in FY 2020. These were both considerable increases from previous years. When it comes to industry and university collaboration in FY 2020, there was $169 million spent by businesses in university research, a decrease of $10 million from 2019.

Following President Joe Biden’s signing of the FY 2022 budget, yesterday the National Science Foundation announced the formation of the Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate that was approved in the bill. According to a statement released by NSF, the goals of this directorate will be to advance critical, emerging technologies, accelerate tech translation, and diversify the U.S. STEM workforce. TIP will leverage a suite of relocated and new programs to advance this mission.

The programs that NSF is planning to move to the TIP portfolio include: I-Corps, Partnerships for Innovation, SBIR/STTR and Convergence Accelerators.

More than five months into the fiscal year, Congress has finally proposed a full budget for FY 2022. While the legislation has not passed both chambers as of this writing, the discretionary spending provisions are expected to remain unchanged. Few programs received as much funding as the House proposed in its appropriations bills last summer, but science and innovation initiatives generally received at least some additional funding. Highlights include: an additional $10.5 million for the SSTI Innovation Advocacy Council’s three priority programs; approval for the National Science Foundation to implement a technology directorate and new Regional Innovation Accelerator program; and, the creation of a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health.

As the U.S. Department of the Treasury continues to review states’ applications for funding from the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), the agency has published new guidance in the form of FAQs, an interim final rule, and an updated timeline for technical assistance awards.

The primary focus of the new FAQs is how states will manage funds for “businesses owned and controlled by socially- and economically-disadvantaged individuals” (or SEDI funds). Items discuss which individuals qualify for the funding, clarify that states do not need to establish separate programs, and define the targets states must reach to unlock set-aside incentive payments for doing a good job directing funds to eligible companies.

Other new and revised FAQs attempt to clarify how venture capital firms may charge SSBCI funds a 1.71 percent services fee, and more explanation of the “incubation” and “early-stage” program models.

As Congress has been finalizing the FY 2022 budget, SSTI Innovation Advocacy Council spent the week meeting with offices to discuss FY 2023 appropriations, which will begin ramping up over the coming weeks. The Council’s funding priorities for the year are increased support for the Economic Development Administration’s Build to Scale program and the Small Business Administration’s Regional Innovation Clusters and Federal & State Technology Partnership (FAST) programs.

Council members talked with offices in both chambers and both parties about increasing funding for these priorities next year and received largely supportive responses. As part of the week’s events, Congresswoman Haley Stevens of Michigan met with the Innovation Advocacy Council to discuss the outlook for innovation authorizations and appropriations. To learn more about SSTI’s policy work, contact Jason Rittenberg (rittenberg@ssti.org).

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contains strong warnings that failure to prevent global warming from increasing more than 1.5 degrees Celsius will result in inevitable increases in climate hazards. The Working Group II report is the second installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report. It assesses the impacts, adaptation capabilities, and vulnerabilities of socioeconomic and natural systems in response to climate change and highlights with increasing alarm the need to address risks resulting from human-induced climate change and the importance of understanding the intersectionality of these risks.

As the country celebrates Women’s History Month two recent reports, one from the National Academy of Inventors and another from PitchBook, feature women’s achievements and offer recommendations to encourage more participation from women.

The report from the National Academy of Inventors highlights key findings on academic women participating in entrepreneurship, invention, and innovation from data collected through a survey. The report identifies the factors encouraging and discouraging women from participating in technology commercialization in academia and provides actionable recommendations to promote more engagement from women and other underrepresented groups throughout the innovation process. According to the report, fostering inclusion for all inventors will maximize Gross Domestic Product.