The Kansas City region is obtaining funding for high-tech research in the life sciences, but entrepreneurship is stifled because of fragmented efforts to improve the innovation environment and the region’s lack of an overall strategy for its various stakeholders. This finding and others were identified in Completing the Puzzle: Creating a High-Tech and Life Sciences Economy in Kansas City, a recent report prepared for the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.

The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp. promoted Kevin Carr to the position of chief operations officer.

The Board of Directors of the EAST (Environmental And Spatial Technology) Initiative invites applications for the position of President/Chief Executive Officer. The EAST model, a result of a collaboration between business and education, is intended to provide K-16 students with access to resources not available in the traditional educational setting.

Sandy Johnson was promoted to CEO of the Mid-America Manufacturing Technology Center.

The source of eadership on specific state tech-based economic development activities greatly influences the design and effectiveness of the effort. It remains to be seen then how the recently launched Arkansas Nanotechnology Alliance evolves locally as its direction originates from the nation's capital.

Jerry Lonergan, president of Kansas, Inc., is resigning effective April 1. A bill to dissolve the state's policy and planning organization passed the Kansas Senate last week.

The perennial or biennial efforts to secure funding from state legislatures to support tech-based economic development (TBED) programs can create significant limitations on the design and execution of programs targeting research or early-stage, seed capital investments. Fixed endowments such as the one created by Wyoming and the Permanent Big Sky Economic Development Fund proposed in Montana (see both stories above) are ideal, but getting the initial payment approved by a legislature can be difficult.

Last month, voters in Arkansas narrowly rejected a major bond proposal targeting technology and capital upgrades in higher education and actively supported by Gov. Mike Huckabee, leaving many to wonder what went wrong.

Following the 1998 Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement, states across the country set out to dedicate significant amounts of funding from their share of the settlement to support research and other TBED programs.

The agricultural states that lie east of the Rocky Mountains are at the center of an escalating decline in population, far exceeding that of other regions of the country. Of particular concern is the effect of population loss among young, educated workers on the states’ economies, resulting in a brain drain that could leave the region lagging the rest of the nation for many years to come.

 

Kansas University has appointed Steve Warren as its first full-time vice provost for research and graduate studies.