SSTI Digest

The Senate confirmed Howard Lutnick as the Secretary for the Department of Commerce on Tuesday, Feb. 18, by a vote of 51-45. Trade talks and tariff negotiations are expected to be top priorities for the secretary as the agency is expected to undergo several structural changes during the coming months. Current, estimates for employees at Commerce number around 50,000 people across a broad range of agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been discussed in the media as a candidate for splitting up, relocation to another agency, and privatization. Of priority for the TBED community within Commerce are the Economic Development Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (which houses the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and federal tech transfer policy), the Minority Business Development Agency, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Census Bureau, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, International Trade Administration, and the US Patent and Trademark Office. Lutnick formerly was CEO of a Wall Street investment firm, Cantor Fitzgerald.

The National Science Foundation issued a brief statement to invited NSF Engines proposers last week indicating its decision to delay the Feb. 11 deadline for the current competition for Regional Innovation Engines to a new date yet to be determined. The explanation states, “NSF anticipates a revision to the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program solicitation (NSF-24-565).

As the federal R&D budget has grown, peer review committee compositions changed, and federal research awards have grown in size, the threshold to obtain the designation as a Carnegie R1 university of $50 million in total research spending to earn the designation was met by 42 additional universities for the first time, bringing the total to 187 nationwide. New designees include San Diego State University, an SSTI member, and Howard University, the only historically Black college or university yet to receive the R1 designation. The new 2025 Research Activity Designations list was recently published by the American Council on Education (ACE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Carnegie Foundation).   Texas had the highest number of R1 institutions (16), followed by California and New York (14 and 12, respectively). Use Figure 1 below to search for the names and locations of all 2025 R1 and R2 Research Activity Designations. You can view all R1 and R2 institutions together or separately; you can also view new additions to these designations together or separately. Figure 1: 2025 R1 and R2 Carnegie Classifications …

The National Science Foundation, on behalf of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), is providing the opportunity for public input toward the development of a national Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan, as directed by President Trump’s Executive Order 14179. The Request for Information (RFI) is extremely broad. It states only that responses, to be submitted by March 15, may address any relevant AI policy topic, including but not limited to: •            hardware and chips, •            data centers, •            energy consumption and efficiency, •            model development, •            open source development, •            application and use (either in the private sector or by government), •           …

The Feb. 7, 2025, memo from the NIH Office of the Director (NOT-OD-25-068), now on hold because of two federal judge actions, announced the implementation of a flat 15% Facilities and Administrative fee (F&A) “across all NIH grants.” While the historic average F&A, or indirect cost rate, paid for by NIH is between 27 and 28%, the memo stated, the agency has previously allowed private small businesses without a negotiated F&A rate to charge up to 40% on their SBIR/STTR awards without further justification, drastically lowering their administrative burdens. Thus, a flat 15% fee on F&A if ever implemented would likely lead to some hardship for the small businesses. Due to the expensive nature of much research in the biotech, pharma, medical device or life science industries, even if a research company had previously negotiated an F&A rate with the federal government, SSTI anticipates the rate likely exceeded 15%. To establish an understanding of potentially impacted businesses, this week’s Useful Stats maps where the 2,566 domestic for-profit companies that shared $2.8 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 NIH awards are located. Starting at the…

NOTE: The nation’s community of technology-based economic development organizations has entered annual report season, and already we've seen several released from SSTI members. All document the impact TBED can have for advancing research, moving it to market, and helping businesses improve their profitability and competitiveness. To help the TBED community in preparing their own annual report, SSTI is speaking with a few of our members to learn more about their evolving approaches for preparing their annual reports. This week, we share insights from our first conversation, based on an interview with Amanda Schroeder, senior vice president, external engagement for the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA).     Planning and producing an annual report can be a year-long process of data acquisition, information verification, message development, and the final product's actual writing, design, and production. This process can all seem a bit overwhelming, so it is wise to know where to start. Shroeder offers some advice. For GRA, the process begins with identifying and gathering relevant data for key performance measures,…

In a recent executive order, The White House is calling for the federal government to establish a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) that will "promote fiscal sustainability, lessen the burden of taxes on American families and small businesses, establish economic security for future generations, and promote United States economic and strategic leadership internationally.” The idea of a U.S. SWF is not entirely new; the Biden administration looked into setting one up in 2024, and, according to the White House fact sheet released along with President Trump’s executive order, 23 U.S. states, including Alaska, New Mexico, and Texas, maintain state SWFs that control in total $332 billion in assets. The White House fact sheet states that “the U.S. already holds a vast sum of highly valued assets that can be invested through a sovereign wealth fund for greater long-term wealth generation.” Several other nation’s already have SWFs, but, an article in Foreign Policy notes, most of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds belong to countries that either possess excess oil revenues or foreign exchange reserves. The article’s author argues that “The U.S. has neither (its oil…

A Feb. 7 memo from the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NOT-OD-25-068) announced the decision to implement a flat 15% Facilities and Administrative fee (F&A), also known as an indirect cost rate, ”across all NIH grants.” Public statements from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Association of American Universities (AAU), American Council on Education, (ACE) and Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), among others, outlined their objections to the move, highlighting the impact it would have on medical research. Press coverage has focused on the impact on institutions of higher education, but it is important to note that SBIR grantees will be covered under this directive as well. The notice is contradictory, however, as to when the policy will go into effect for grantees that are not institutions of higher education.   Historically, the average rate NIH has paid for F&A has been 27-28%, according to the memo. In the past, the actual rate reimbursed by a grantee could be negotiated for awardees who submitted documentation to NIH in accordance with federal law and accounting…

Answering the question of what impact a flat 15% F&A reimbursement rate would have on the nation’s SBIR startups requires real data. The data doesn’t currently exist that we are aware of. As a result, SSTI invites all SBA FAST recipients, state SBIR matching grant programs, life science-based innovation and commercialization offices, and other interested TBED initiatives to join us for a virtual meeting as we launch a ‘citizen-science based’ online record gathering initiative to help inform state and federal policymakers.  Register here. SSTI university members will be invited to a zoom later this week. Academic parties interested in attending that call but are not members of SSTI currently may explore membership here.

President Trump’s nominee to become Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, cleared the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Feb. 4 by a vote of 16 to 12. A floor vote is expected soon, possibly still this week. Among the agencies within the Commerce Department are two agencies that support core elements of regional innovation and technology-based economic development more broadly. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) oversees the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Economic Development Administration, which is one of the largest federally supported of core TBED and economic development efforts around the country. Lutnick’s support of the CHIPS Act and sustaining the current structure of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) remain unclear, according to Roll Call. Lutnick is currently CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a Wall Street financial services firm.  

In this week’s continuing coverage of gubernatorial addresses as they impact the innovation economy, the following highlights have been selected from three of the eight State of the States or budget addresses given between Jan. 28 and Feb. 5, 2025, by the governors from Indiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. This is the first address for Indiana's new governor, and it provides evidence of economic development being one of his top priorities. Information on previous 2025 State of the States and/or budget addresses can be found here and here. Upcoming addresses and states will be covered in future Digest issues. With the start of the new year, most governors deliver State of the State addresses or Budget addresses laying out their priorities for the coming year. With revenues for many states relatively consistent with forecasters’ expectations, lawmakers, with a few exceptions, continue to maintain cautious or constrained views of their funding priorities and proposed initiatives. As a result, many governors in SSTI’s analysis of addresses delivered so far this season speak more to previously implemented programs and their continued successes rather than…

The launch of a new private equity firm in central Ohio is a reminder of the continuing ripple effects of a decades-long strategy of cultivating an innovation system. If the State of Ohio hadn’t created and provided sustained funding over decades for its integrated array of technology-based economic development programs, the founders of a newly launched private equity firm wouldn’t be in the position now to commit to helping more mid-market companies succeed in central Ohio. Acceptd, an arts-centered platform development company, tapped several different aspects of Ohio’s Third Frontier Program at various times in the startup’s growth cycle before being acquired for a hefty price in 2021. The founders of that company have now launched a private equity firm to acquire middle-market companies. The long-tail returns to Ohio from its decades-long commitment to building an innovation culture—in which financing individual innovation-driven companies is only one part—continue to pay dividends to Ohioans far beyond the standard performance metrics used by public economic development programs. Successful regional innovation system building requires more than…