SSTI Digest

January 22, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET | Zoom

Considering applying for the SBA’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition? Join our TBED Community of Practice webinar as three past winners walk us through their projects from initial concept to current status. Learn what motivated them to apply, see how they put the funding to work and hear their advice for future applicants. Whether you’re planning to apply for the 2025 competition or exploring funding opportunities to support your TBED projects, come learn how these organizations transformed their initial ideas into lasting community impacts.

Featured organizations:

• The Florida High Tech Corridor
• FuzeHub
• Startup Tucson

Register now 

The new Tech Hub awards from EDA and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines (Engines) program support regions advancing a critical technology area with existing traction in their region but for proposers, identifying such areas is often challenging. Recognizing this, SSTI has recently updated a data tool comprised of two interactive visuals and a downloadable data file that can aid in identifying the critical technologies in an applicant’s geographic location to assist applicants with the upcoming full proposal deadline for Engines on February 11, 2025.

The United States’ global competitiveness rank, as calculated by the International Institute of for Management Development, fell three points from 9th in 2023 to 12th in 2024. The nation’s ranking for government efficiency had an even sharper drop of nine points, from 25th in 2023 to 34th in 2024. In timely response to these trends, two federal advisory committees recently submitted reports outlining ways for the U.S. Small Business Administration to sharpen its ability to assist companies in becoming more globally competitive while also improving the productivity of the agency’s work.

In its report, Enhancing U.S. Economic Competitiveness Through Support for Small Businesses and Innovators, the Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Advisory Committee (IIEAC) offers recommendations around three themes:

Higher education R&D expenditures, while continuing to steadily increase, have not grown evenly across state lines. This matters to successful TBED policymakers because a strong R&D enterprise within a state’s public and private institutions of higher education can and should provide a consistent source of skilled workers, new technology, and sources for innovation-driven business growth. So where is R&D growing?

A recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Self-reinforcing Glass Ceilings by Carlos F. Avenancio-León, Alessio Piccolo, and Leslie Sheng Shen delves into the complexities of the gender pay gap, even after it has narrowed. The authors challenge the conventional understanding that a shrinking gender pay gap automatically leads to greater gender equality. Instead, they argue that the labor market's response to a narrowing gap can paradoxically contribute to the persistence of gender inequities.

The most recent  Higher Education R&D (HERD) survey revealed the largest year-over-year percentage increase in higher education R&D since 2002 to 2003 and dollar increase across all fiscal years (FYs) captured by the survey. HERD expenditures breached the $100 billion mark in 2023, having grown 11% from $97.8 billion in 2022 to $108.8 billion in 2023 (7% in constant 2017 dollars, from $82.9 to $89 billion). Federally funded HERD expenditures continue to increase in dollars, but decrease in overall share, while business and institution funds grow as a proportion.

As seen in Figure 1, since 1973, the earliest data available, HERD expenditures have shown a consistent upward trend in both constant and current dollars. However, growth in current dollars has been more pronounced due to inflation. Expenditures reflect real growth when adjusted for inflation (constant 2017 dollars).

The U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced the third major R&D facility as part of its CHIPS for America program. This new facility will be located at the Arizona State University (ASU) Research Park in Tempe, Arizona. It will host the world’s first 300mm front-end semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging research center, allowing researchers and industry leaders to develop cutting-edge materials, devices, and packaging solutions.

January 22, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET | Zoom

Considering applying for the SBA’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition? Join our TBED Community of Practice webinar as three past winners walk us through their projects from initial concept to current status. Learn what motivated them to apply, see how they put the funding to work and hear their advice for future applicants. Whether you’re planning to apply for the 2025 competition or exploring funding opportunities to support your TBED projects, come learn how these organizations transformed their initial ideas into lasting community impacts.

Featured organizations:
·        The Florida High Tech Corridor
·        FuzeHub
·        Startup Tucson

Register now 

The federal government spending on non-defense AI R&D has increased from $560 million in fiscal year 2018 to $2.1 billion in 2023, according to the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence report released in the closing month of the 118th session. The report encourages Congress to continue federal R&D efforts, with specific recommendations for Congress to support fundamental R&D for continued global leadership in AI innovation, increase technology transfer from university R&D to market, and promote public-private partnerships for AI R&D. The report also encourages Congress to align national AI strategy with broader U.S. technology strategy, explore how to accelerate scientific discovery across disciplines with AI, and support AI R&D for small businesses.

In last November’s general election, Massachusetts voters approved Question 3: the Unionization and Collective Bargaining for Transportation Network Drivers Initiative, allowing the state’s more than 80,000 Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. (The measure only covers ride-hailing service drivers not those delivering goods for companies such as DoorDash.) Aiming to address such issues as sub-minimum wages and other driver concerns, it is a groundbreaking result that could spur similar unionization efforts in other states. It is the latest development in ongoing battles over the role of gig workers in the U.S.

Enterprise Minnesota, the official Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Center for the state, recently released its annual State of Manufacturing survey. The yearly report found unprecedented anxiety among respondents, noting that the sectors’ mood is one of worry paired with concerns about the economy and business prospects; it also revealed that the state’s manufacturing executives believe Minnesota’s business climate is worse than any time in the 16-year history of the survey. The report is a stark difference to sentiments in neighboring Wisconsin.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee and key architect of the CHIPS and Science Law, secured up to $500 million in federal investments to preserve and expand the Regional Tech Hubs (Tech Hubs) program. Sen. Cantwell secured the funding as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is set to pass before the end of the year. SSTI helped lead a coalition that advocated for the provision and additional funding for Tech Hubs.

As explained in a press release from Senator Cantwell, while Congress authorized $12.9 billion for the Tech Hubs over five years under the law, only 10% of authorized funding for the first two years has been appropriated.