SSTI Digest

With the latest National Conference of State Legislatures survey revealing 45 states are dealing with falling revenue projections and 37 already report budget gaps in next year's revenue forecasts (see http://www.ssti.org/Digest/2002/021502.htm), the number of states proposing or considering cuts to higher education for FY 2003 continues to grow. 



Nearly half of the states — Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin — already have cut current year appropriations to universities and colleges or recommended cuts for next year. 

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99), the third in a series, presents the results of a 1998 survey conducted of institutions' policies and practices affecting faculty. Among the findings -- a large proportion, about two-fifths, of all faculty worked part time. During the five year period preceding the study, 40 percent of all institutions (all public and private not-for-profit Title IV participating, degree-granting institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia) took actions to reduce the size of the full-time faculty. Twenty-two percent of them did so by simply replacing full-time faculty with part-time faculty. Other measures included "increasing the faculty course load, increasing class size, reducing program offerings, and substituting on-campus courses taught by full-time faculty with remote site (e.g. video, audio, internet) courses." 

With the release of the President's FY 2003 budget request, five of seven federal programs designed to help state universities in 21 states were slated for cuts or total elimination. Collectively known as the EPSCoR programs, short for Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, the emphasis began in 1979, with an innovative National Science Foundation (NSF) program intended to improve the research competitiveness of those states that have received lesser amounts of federal R&D funding. 



Designed around the premise that aiding researchers and institutions in securing federal R&D funding will develop a state's research infrastructure and advance economic growth locally and nationally, EPSCoR investments have become an integral element of many states' strategies to develop tech-based economies. 

On March 1, the National Center for Educational Statistics released the 597-page Digest of Educational Statistics, 2001. Included in the tome are several hundred tables covering demographic data for all levels of education. Highlights of relevance to this special Higher Education issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest include: 

Illinois 

The March 7 Chicago Tribune reported that the new 840-acre DuPage County Technology Park has hired its first executive director. Jack Tenison, deputy administrator for county government in Dupage, will start the position April 1 and will work to link development of the property with the nearby Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Argonne National Lab, the area universities, and the adjacent airport. The Trib says a $34 million state grant will pay for planning and preliminary construction of the park. 



Indiana 

In our occasional Useful Stats series in the SSTI Weekly Digest over the past few months, SSTI published online tables for three statistical measures that can be used as indicators of a state's relative position or, when collected over time, progress toward specific tech-based economic development goals involving academic performance or research. Links to the full reports from which the statistics are derived are provided on each table's web page. 



Educational Attainment Rankings by State 

Over the past few years, the SSTI Weekly Digest has covered several reports concerning universities, their economic impact and research and development issues. Some of these are highlighted below. In addition, on SSTI's Resources web page are links to several academic associations and organizations that follow the topics discussed in this special issue more closely. 



Using Research and Development to Grow State Economies by Dan Berglund and Marianne Clarke  



The Economic Returns to Basic Research and the Benefits of University-Industry Relationships: A Literature Review and Update of Findings by Alister Scott, et al. 

Backed by a Technology Foresight Fund of more than $550 million annually, the Science Foundation Ireland has given the go-ahead to a new awards system designed to attract top researchers and support industry-university partnerships.



The new system includes SFI awards for world-class researchers who move to Ireland, for Irish and international researchers already based in Ireland, for the support of scientific conferences for scientists based in Ireland and for a requirement for collaboration among certain SFI-funded researchers and industry:

An historic, five-year reauthorization bill for the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) awaits only the President's signature after being approved Tuesday by Congress.



President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law, making the reauthorization of ARC the longest in its history and only the second congressional reauthorization of the agency since the Carter Administration.



The reauthorization bill contains several key provisions:

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) has $335 million available for grants to support state, regional and community efforts to create wealth and minimize poverty by promoting a favorable business environment to attract private capital investment and high skill, high wage jobs through world-class capacity building, infrastructure, business assistance, research grants and strategic initiatives.



EDA encourages only those investment proposals that will significantly benefit areas experiencing or threatened with substantial economic distress. Distress may exist in a variety of forms, including but not limited to: High levels of unemployment, low income levels, large concentrations of low-income families, significant declines in per capita income, substantial loss of population because of the lack of employment opportunities, large numbers (or high rates) of business failures, sudden major layoffs or plant closures, military base closures, natural or other major disasters, depletion of natural resources, and/or reduced tax bases.

Colorado

On Monday, Colorado Secretary of Technology Marc Holtzman announced a new $11 million partnership between the Public Employees’ Retirement Association of Colorado and ITU Ventures, LLC. The partnership was formed to invest in technology emerging from Colorado's research institutions. ITU will assist the commercial growth of technological innovation by working with researchers, administration and university tech transfer offices. More information is available at: http://www.oit.state.co.us/about/press_1.asp?prid=16

While some practitioners have centered themselves on running programs and shoring up budgets during the present fiscal crisis, other efforts are underway, including that of the Innovation Policy and the Economy (IPE) group of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).



The IPE group is presenting five papers developed by leading academic researchers on April 16 at its annual forum in Washington, D.C. The papers, to be published in an annual series by NBER, will be open to discussion by policymakers and those interested in the interaction between public policy and innovation who typically attend the half-day event. The papers include: