SSTI Digest

Please take a few minutes to complete this form and return it to SSTI. We would like to have responses faxed back to us by November 8, 1996 Fax: 614-421-9123

A Memorandum of Understanding has been entered into between the U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration (TA) and the National Governors' Association (NGA) to develop the U.S. Innovation Partnership (USIP). USIP will be developed to help combine and coordinate state and federal efforts in science and technology and manufacturing extension programs.

USIP is intended to integrate inter-governmental policies and strategies to support the development of competitive businesses through innovation and the diffusion of technological resources. Seventeen governors have committed to participate on the USIP working group, and each governor has also committed the time of a senior policy advisor to serve on the USIP planning committee. Twelve federal agencies will be participating in the working group.  

While most of the attention has been focused on the presidential election and the fight for control of the Congress, eleven states will also be electing governors on November 5. Four of those races are for open seats where the governor has either decided not to seek reelection or is prohibited from running again.

The states with gubernatorial elections are:

Delaware -Tom Carper, the Democrat incumbent, is facing Janet Rzewnicki, the Republican State Treasurer. Carper has been elected to various offices nine times and has not lost once in the last 20 years. No poll results were available.

SSTI has entered into a cooperative agreement with the Economic Development Administration to examine how state investments in science and technology can support development in distressed areas. The project includes:

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released its annual report on funding for university projects that Congress specifically directed federal agencies to support. According to the Chronicle, nearly $299 million was earmarked in FY96 for higher education activities. The FY96 level of earmarks was a significant decrease from the $600 million identified in FY95.

The projects, in which specific universities were named either in appropriations bills or the legislative reports that accompany them, were identified by officials of the agencies or universities involved, or by Congressional aides. The report addresses items for which federal agencies did not request funding or sponsor merit-based competitions (although there were a few projects for which funding was added to projects that had previously been competitively awarded).

Last month, Governor George W. Bush issued an Executive Order that created the Texas Science and Technology Council. The mission of the 21 member board is to "research, develop, and report to the Governor the means available to the State of Texas to become the national leader in science and technology cooperation, development, and research."

Among other activities the Council will: 1) review and recommend policies to increase the amount of research conducted by state colleges, state universities and the private sector; 2) propose state policies and actions that promote technology development and transfer in Texas; 3) analyze and propose state policies that encourage availability and accessibility of venture capital and commercial lending; 4) study and make recommendations on any issues that relate to improving the state's competitive position in science, R&D, and advanced technology development.