SSTI Digest

At its August 28th meeting, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) approved sending a letter to President Bush urging him to "improve funding levels for physical sciences and certain areas of engineering" as the Administration prepares the FY 2004 federal budget request. The letter also encourages the federal government to establish a graduate fellowship program to attract more students into critical fields of science and engineering.

Considerable debate has been held regarding the past two federal budgets as appropriations for R&D in the life sciences, particularly within the National Institutes of Health, have grown faster than funding levels for the other sciences.

For the first time, the PCAST position expresses concern for an R&D imbalance at the highest levels of the Administration; John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is a co-chair for PCAST.

Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Townsend recently announced the release of Founders of Maryland Bioscience and Medical Instrument Companies, a report on the career pathways taken by founders of biotechnology companies in Maryland.

Funded by the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), the report is part of the Bioscience Dialogue, a collaborative effort within the state's biotechnology industry to identify issues of importance to its growth. The $30,000 report traces the background of 276 company founders in Maryland and highlights these findings in bio-entrepreneurship:

A public entity setting up a satellite office for promotion and business recruitment is not new. Many state economic development departments have done it for years in foreign countries to encourage international trade. State film promotion boards do it in Hollywood to attract movie projects to their home states.

But the University of Wisconsin has added a twist to the field office concept that is new and perhaps somewhat controversial.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported last week that the University of Wisconsin was establishing a patent licensing office in San Diego. The decision is reportedly the first of its kind by a U.S. academic institution.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans has awarded a $6.44 million grant, the largest-ever economic development grant given by the Bush Administration, to Advancing California’s Emerging Technologies (ACET) to expand the Oakland Alameda Bio Tech Incubator to a 40,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art laboratory.

Once completed, the newly expanded building will be the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi, ACET director Sam Doctors said in a press statement. Housing nearly 40 high tech, biotechnology, environmental and energy start-up companies, the incubator will include fully equipped laboratory and office space, videoconferencing facilities, and other shared amenities.

Manufacturing is a robust driver of California's economy according to a Manufacturing Matters: California's Performance and Prospects, a new report prepared by the Milken Institute. The analysis was prepared for the California Manufacturing and Technology Association.

Milken found that the share of wages dependent upon manufacturing is above the national average. Average manufacturing wage and income was $54,600 in 2000 for California; the national average was only $43,400. Average California wages in computers and machinery is almost double the national average. Milken concludes these variances make California manufacturers targets for other state's industrial recruitment efforts.

Many efforts to encourage young Americans to pursue careers in science, engineering and manufacturing took advantage of students having the summer off from regular classes. Programs range from one-week science camps to season-long internships and cooperative workstudies. To help other communities begin planning for the end of the 2003 school year, SSTI highlights a few examples from this past summer in this article.

In each of the past two years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published a list of the top 100 metro areas based on the total distribution of NIH funds. This year's table breaks down the total number of awards and dollar amounts by type of funding: research grants, training grants, fellowships, R&D contracts, and other awards.

New York City joined Boston this year as the only two metro areas to surpass $1 billion in total NIH funding. San Diego, Philadelphia and Baltimore round out the top five.

The NIH 2001 table is available at: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/award/trends/citytop100fy01.htm

North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley was recently joined by Congressional, university, and local and business representatives last week in announcing a 180-acre expansion of Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem. The biotech park will include a new research campus for Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Richard H. Dean, M.D., president and CEO of Wake Forest University Health Sciences (WFUHS), described the multimillion-dollar initiative as "a major commitment to transform our economy from one driven by manufacturing to one led by technology."

The park currently covers a five-block area and includes four multi-story buildings, more than 20 tenants, approximately 600 employees, and a total payroll approaching $25 million. The acreage of the proposed expansion is more than 10 times the size of the current park and would be in close proximity to both Winston-Salem State University and Salem College.

The Southern Innovation Index, a strategic plan created with the governments of 13 Southern states and Puerto Rico to promote innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth in the South, has been released by the Southern Growth Policies Board, a bipartisan public policy group based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

The index identifies 56 benchmarks and 10-year targets for each of the Southern Growth member states — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico — to track the progress of technology and innovation initiatives in the region. It includes state-by-state data and summaries relative to the publication's primary goals:

The amount of time a technology-based economic development (TBED) professional can spend out of the office for professional development is limited. So are travel funds. That's why SSTI packs so much into its annual conference — already the largest event in the country dedicated to improving state, local and regional TBED efforts.

And the premier conference for the field keeps growing. Since the agenda was printed, one session and additional speakers have been added to the October 2-3 event in Dearborn, Michigan (see below). Building Tech-based Economies: From Policy to Practice is two full days with more than 30 breakout and plenary sessions specifically tailored to meet the professional development needs of those interested in TBED. The updated conference agenda and speaker bios are available on SSTI's website: http://www.ssti.org/conference02.htm [expired]

Enrollment in graduate-level computer science and computer engineering (CS&CE) programs continued to grow in 2000-01 as the number of new undergraduates majoring in CS&CE declined, according to a survey released earlier this year by the Computing Research Association (CRA).

The annual CRA Taulbee Survey of Ph.D.-granting CS&CE departments in the U.S. and Canada discusses trends in enrollment, production, and employment of Ph.D. degrees in CS&CE and provides salary and demographic data for faculty in CS&CE. Except for faculty salary information, which is presented for the current year, data are given for the preceding academic year.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has released online the 2002-3 Almanac of Higher Education, an annual collection of facts and figures about U.S. colleges and universities. Published annually at the end of August, the Almanac includes data on students, professors, administrators, institutions, and their resources, as well as state-by-state profiles of higher education in the U.S.

Included in the Almanac's overview is a look at college enrollment trends, demographics, faculty pay, tuition and fees. The Almanac uses several tables to illustrate such statistical indicators as average tuition and fees, expenditures, state appropriations, state spending on student aid, research spending by universities, and federal funds for research at colleges and universities.