SSTI Digest

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) is offering nearly $411 million in financial assistance for distressed areas. The agency has already begun accepting proposals and will continue to do so until the $410,972,866 allocated for FY 2001 is exhausted. EDA seeks proposals for projects that will significantly benefit areas experiencing or threatened with substantial economic distress, and targets assistance to communities with the highest economic distress. Such distress may exist in a variety of forms such as 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, or reduced tax bases.

While venture capital is harder to come by these days in most parts of the country due to the dot-com crash and stock market declines, investment capital may flow more easily in two southern states based on two initiatives.



Florida: $450 Million for CAPCOs Considered

The state legislature is currently considering CAPCO legislation to triple the maximum limit for tax breaks granted to insurance companies that invest in Florida companies through venture capital funds. Senate Bill 1130, passed unanimously in the Banking and Insurance committee this week, now moves to the Commerce and Economic Opportunities Committee for consideration. More information is available at: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Welcome/index.cfm

During the first days of March, Michigan Governor John Engler announced the implementation of two programs through the Michigan Virtual University to integrate information technology into the state’s education system.



Laptops for Teachers

On March 6, the Governor ceremoniously distributed the first laptop computers in the Teacher Technology Initiative (TTI) announced last year. The program allocates up to $1,200 for each eligible educator to receive a computer complete with software, including a productivity package, Internet access, a warranty and web-based professional development. It is funded by a one-time $110 million appropriation made last year by the state legislature, providing 90,000 Michigan teachers with computers and Internet access.



TTI applications from some 211 school districts were processed during the months of December, January and February, representing 23,839 teachers and an investment of $28.6 million.

Does patenting encourage or speed the transfer of technology from universities? Does the prospect of receiving royalties and licensing fees increase motivation among university researchers to work with businesses to commercialize technology? A recent paper suggests the answers to both questions is "no," but that more empirical and statistical research is needed to determine whether or not increased emphasis on intellectual property rights is achieving the desired results.



How Do University Inventions Get Into Practice?, prepared by a team of researchers from across the country, is the first report on a study that attempts to understand:

Research and development activity in the nonprofit sector share of total U.S. R&D held steady at 3 percent from 1973 to 1997, according to a February 15 Data Brief prepared by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Data Brief reports on the first survey of nonprofit R&D activity since 1973.



The new study captured R&D funding and performance by nonprofit organizations for fiscal years 1996 and 1997. In 1997 nonprofit organization intramural R&D expenditures totalled $7.3 billion. The average annual current dollar increase from 1973 to 1997 was five percent when adjusted for inflation. Extramural R&D activity for nonprofits was estimated to be approximately $1.5 billion for the same year.

Growing and keeping an educated workforce, one ready to help build a technology-based economy, is one of the greatest challenges even the most high-tech areas. The problem can be quite severe. For example, a new statewide survey of Florida college students, conducted by Leadership Florida and Nova Southeastern University, revealed that only 48 percent of the students plan to remain in Florida after graduation. (For a copy of the Florida survey report see http://www.leadershipflorida.org/survey.asp) 



Who Will Stay and Who Will Leave?, a forthcoming report from the Southern Technology Council (STC), provides one of the first in-depth looks at what factors influence graduate migration behavior after college. With emphasis on recent science and engineering graduates, STC identified several individual, institutional, and state-level predictors of student retention using a series of regression analyses of 44 different variables.