Is a strong university research component critical to local tech-based economic development? Many argue this position, including SSTI (Using Research and Development to Grow State Economies). Using data on royalties, licenses, and job creation figures, others have demonstrated the economic contributions of university R&D.

Douglas Foy, Secretary for Commonwealth Development for Massachusetts, announced his resignation effective in March.

The Institute for Government Innovation at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government recently announced open competition for its 2002 annual awards program.

Connecticut-based bioscience research and development (R&D) investment in 2001 totaled $3.6 billion, an 18 percent increase over 2000, according to the Seventh Annual Economic Report of Connecticut United for Research Excellence (CURE), Connecticut's bioscience Cluster.



2001 Gains and Future Opportunities, released last week at Yale University, highlights several economic indicators that demonstrate the growth of the bioscience industry in Connecticut, including:

As a means of highlighting the performance and composition of state economies, Harvard's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, led by Dr. Michael Porter, has published profiles on all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

University of Buffalo Entrepreneurial Awards 

An in-depth look at the one-year success of a student company to win last year's first Panasci Entrepreneurial Awards at the University of Buffalo recently was highlighted in the Buffalo News. 

"If technology is at the core of the Innovation Economy, then investment in research and development is one of the principal drivers in the creation of that technology."

They may be separated by more than 6,000 miles, but tech-based economic development initiatives in Hawaii and Connecticut have adopted similar strategies to encourage the commercialization of alternative energy technologies: they're buying them. 

With the emphasis many state and local tech-based economic development organizations have placed on biotechnology over the past 12-18 months, few are far enough along in implementing their strategies to point to more than a handful of successes or new construction projects. The recent explosion in public investment of resources and policies toward developing local biotech capacity is largely based on the promise of anticipated economic gains in the near or not-so-near future. 

Editor's Note: The fifth installment in our review of the Governors' inaugural addresses, state of the state addresses, and budget messages for 2001. The first four articles in the series were over the past four weeks. Those issues of the SSTI Weekly Digest and all other previous editions are available on our website: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/2001/headlines01.htm

It is widely argued in the tech-based economic development community that New Economy businesses, specifically computers and information technology, account for the tremendous economic growth of the last half of the 1990s. But does the data support this?

Many tech-based economic development programs recognize the importance of having seed and venture capital accessible to their start up tech firms and entrepreneurs. Some practitioners, though, see a challenge in encouraging equity investment in more conservative, risk adverse regions and localities. The dot-com “correction” of last year probably did not help.

Mark Robinson resigned as chief operating officer of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.