Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to spur Russia's economic modernization through the Skolkovo innovation center. Currently in the planning stage, the research hub will be at the heart of Russia's modernization strategy. Energy, IT, telecommunications, biotechnology and nuclear technology are the five "presidential" research priorities at Skolkovo. On his current American visit, President Medvedev will attempt to attract talent and private investment from Silicon Valley. Cisco already has committed to a partnership with Skolkovo.

Specialized and high-tech incubators provide crucial services and resources to promote and enhance Commercialization & Entrepreneurship, one of the six thematic tracks of this year's annual conference. Three sessions tied to this theme will be explored during SSTI's annual conference, focusing on direct lessons from successful and proven TBED programs, regional innovation clustering, and more. They include:

• Distributed, Non-University Models for Commercializing New Technologies

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced the selection of 10 regional economic development and job creation efforts through a new pilot program, Innovative Economies, that supports small business participation in regional economic clusters. SBA's funding is designed to expand the opportunities and the role small businesses play in these regional collaborations. The awardees were selected from among 173 applicants. Awards went to organizations in: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina.

This year as states were wrestling with significant deficits, several proposals to consolidate TBED initiatives with other units of government emerged. The most recently decided was in Connecticut, where the General Assembly did not move forward with a plan to merge the state's two primary financing agencies, Connecticut Innovations and the Connecticut Development Authority to form a new Connecticut Economic Innovations Authority. Gov. Jodi Rell had proposed the consolidation.

The national recession that began at the end of 2007 is "very likely over," according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Recovery, however, may be a long way off. Because states were affected differently by the economic downturn in both timing and impact, recovery for state and local economies is likely to occur at different times. Moody's Economy.com predicts, according to an MSNBC article, that job growth will return first in five states: Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

TBED People
Walter Bumphus has been named the next president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges. Bumphus currently serves as a professor in the Community College Leadership Program and chair of the Educational Administration Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Bumphus will begin his tenure with AACC in January.

Connecticut has certified its first fund manager under the state's revised Insurance Reinvestment Tax Credit program, which has now expanded beyond its focus on insurance-related companies to support early stage and high-tech firms. Advantage Capital Partners has raised $72 million to invest under the revamped program. Fund managers may invest in any Connecticut-based business. One quarter of the investments must support green technology firms, and three percent must go toward pre-seed stage projects.

Governors across the nation are trying to find ways to prevent their state finances from falling further in the red as revenues continue to fall while costs for Medicare and unemployment remain high. Deficit-reduction plans announced in two states seek to delay payments and cut funding to biomedical research initiatives that were established to expand the states’ research capacity and generate wealth.

Connecticut

The United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva recently announced an expansion of its online free searchable patent application database. In addition to containing an existing 1.65 million international patents filed for protection under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) from 30 countries, the database now includes digital information for 1.49 million additional records from the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, Singapore, Vietnam, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), and Cuba.

By creating Ontario’s Regional Innovation Networks (ORIN) three years ago, the provincial government experimented with how to establish customized systems-specific, but network-integrated approaches to strengthening and supporting regional innovation.

Earlier this month, the Canadian Minister of Industry announced the establishment of 11 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs) to pursue multidisciplinary work in the areas of environmental science, natural resources and energy, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies. This $163 million investment joins a $105 million investment last year that created seven other CECRs across Canada.

 

Transforming as many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as possible into globally competitive firms is a challenge, as most TBED practitioners know. The complexity of combining all of Europe into a single market makes the work even more daunting.

 

To simplify the process for SMEs in more than 40 countries, the European Commission recently launched a consolidated Enterprise Europe Network. The network consolidates the older Euro Info Centres and the Innovation Relay Centres.

 

Venture capitalists invested almost $2.5 billion in China in 2007, according to a new report from Dow Jones VentureSource. That figure is a 5 percent increase over the 2006, and the highest since 2001, despite a decrease in the number of deals. Though investment is not growing quite as quickly as it is in the U.S., where venture investment rose by 8 percent last year, China is becoming a key global market for venture investment.

 

The following overview is a synopsis of selected recent announcements from research parks across the nation, including new tenants, groundbreakings and tools for financing start-up companies.

                       

Frank Dinucci announced he will step down in April 2007 as president of Connecticut Innovations.