SSTI Digest

Michael Witt has been appointed Executive Director of MichBio, the state's bioscience industry association.

A recent $10 billion judgment against Philip Morris may have the tobacco giant filing bankruptcy. Philip Morris has claimed it cannot post a $12 billion bond to appeal a lawsuit in Illinois or even meet the $2.6 billion payment due mid-April for the 1998 settlement with the states.

The tobacco company's actions are expected to have repercussions for several states counting on the funds to finance TBED initiatives. Among those threatened are Michigan's well known $1 billion life science investment over 20 years. One-fifth of Pennsylvania's future tobacco settlement payments are targeted toward life science technologies. And, the Missouri legislature is considering a bill that would commit one-quarter of the state's settlement money to the life sciences, beginning in 2006.

Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell recently unveiled an economic stimulus program that will invest nearly $2 billion in bonds and loan guarantees. The stimulus program is intended to leverage at least $5 billion in private investment in economic development projects, creating jobs in Pennsylvania's small and mid-size cities and towns.

Key provisions of Plan for a New Pennsylvania include:

The past week has marked the beginning of two public initiatives in Washington State to increase the availability of financing for technology firms.

Rural Technology Loan Fund

The Washington Technology Center, in partnership with the Evergreen Community Development Association, has established a Rural Technology Loan Fund to assist in the creation of family wage sustainable technology jobs that help alleviate poverty in rural communities in the state. The program is designed to provide gap financing or late-stage product development loans for implementation of value-added production processes and/or technology development.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has posted an online version of its 304-page analysis of the research and development portion of the President's FY04 budget request. After a five-chapter overview, which includes a brief look at declining industrial R&D expenditures, the report breaks down the $122.5 billion request for R&D for seven federal agencies.

The report also provides cross-agency looks for numerous disciplines: physics; astronomy; atmospheric sciences and climate change; ocean sciences; earth sciences; biological and ecological sciences; chemical sciences; behavioral and social sciences; federal statistics; mathematical sciences; computing research; nanotechnology; electrotechnology related; and mechanical engineering.

Each of the book's 27 chapters, as well as the appendices and tables, is separately downloadable.

An update to Louisiana: Vision 2020, a strategic plan to improve the Louisiana economy, calls for creating more quality jobs in the state's high growth sectors. First released by the Louisiana Economic Development Council in 1998, the newly revised plan also stresses the need to place increased importance on early childhood education, teacher quality and math and reading performance among high school students as keys to boosting student achievement.

Louisiana: Vision 2020, 2003 Update centers around three goals designed to accomplish 27 quantifiable objectives. Goal One, which sets up the next two goals, calls for the state to reinvent itself as a Learning Enterprise, "a rich, diverse, complex organism in which all businesses, institutions, and citizens are actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge."

The business incubation industry has grown dramatically since 1998, both in the number of programs in operation and the depth and breadth of services they offer, according to 2002 State of the Business Incubation Industry, a recent report by the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA).

NBIA regularly surveys business incubators throughout North America to identify trends in the industry. The organization's 2002 report highlights survey data collected in 2001.

“In 2001 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 35,000 start-up companies that provided full-time employment for nearly 82,000 workers and generated annual earnings of more than $7 billion,” JoAnn Rollins, NBIA director of membership, said in a press statement.

Corporate, community and independent foundations can be significant sources of funding for local and regional technology-based economic development initiatives. Unfortunately, the first look at growth and giving estimates for 2002 and 2003, suggests foundations may be less charitable than previous years to new and existing grantees.

Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates: 2002 Preview, prepared by The Foundation Center, projects that giving by the country's nearly 62,000 grantmaking foundations in 2002 was $30.3 billion, down less than one percent from the $30.5 billion recorded in 2001. This relatively stable level of giving followed six consecutive years of double-digit percentage growth in foundation support.

A recent study released by the AeA reported a decline of 560,000 high-tech jobs in the U.S. over the period from January 2001 to December 2002. However, AeA’s Tech Employment Update may not show the true magnitude of the decrease in high-tech jobs, as the AeA definition of high-tech excludes many industrial sectors with significant R&D investments.

Using a broader definition developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals high tech employment fell by 602,000 jobs. The BLS definition was updated by Daniel Hecker in "High-Technology Employment: A Broader View" in the June 1999 issue of Monthly Labor Review.

Two of SSTI's sister organizations for promoting technology-based economic development (TBED) had items of potential interest to the readers of the SSTI Weekly Digest in their e-newsletters this week. The highlights below include links for more information.

The Institute for Government Innovations has announced it is accepting applications for the 17th Annual Innovations in American Government Awards, ultimately to identify outstanding examples of creative problem solving in the public sector.

Innovations in American Government encompasses all levels of American government, focusing on domestic programs. Innovations that arise within defense and international agencies are eligible if they have significant domestic policy content, such as job training, base conversion, procurement reform, energy conservation or environmental protection. Weapons systems will not be considered.

The awards cycle consists of four rounds, which will result in 15 finalists. Five winners will be selected in May 2004 to receive $100,000 each.

The Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation has launched a two-phase, $30 million program intended to accelerate the development of Ontario's biotechnology cluster. The Biotechnology Cluster Innovation Program (BCIP) will support biotechnology infrastructure projects that will help create new companies.

BCIP is expected to support projects such as commercialization centers, research parks and other regional initiatives that demonstrate entrepreneurship and innovation. The program also will fund projects that integrate biotechnology into knowledge-based and traditional industry sectors such as photonics, information technology, automotive, chemicals, agriculture, and forestry.