Want to participate in a new concept in innovation clusters? The Southern Advanced Materials in Transportation Alliance (SAMTA) is a regional innovation cluster that promotes the research, commercialization, and production of new and specialized materials important to the automotive and aerospace industries. Although traditional clusters are based on geographic concentration, SAMTA will use telecommunications networks to minimize geographic distance and facilitate the industry network. The Economic Development Administration has provided seed funding for this project.

Our German isn't what it should be and online translators weren't as helpful as we'd expected, but we wanted to make readers aware of the size of the investment Berlin is making over the next four years to recruit star faculty to its four research universities and the four local, private research institutions of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Helmholtzgemeinschaft, Leibniz Community, and the Max Planck Society.

The U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation recently announced that the U.S. had completed its contribution to the international Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Project on budget and ahead of schedule. By the end of the year, the LHC at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) laboratory near Geneva will generate its first particle collisions and research output. Total U.S. contribution to the project is about $531 million of the $5.89 billion cost of the project. Although the U.S.

Eleven gubernatorial elections were held across the U.S. on Tuesday, resulting in the selection of three new governors - with TBED initiatives spread throughout their campaigns' messages.

Universities in Canada are a major component of the country's science and technology ecosystem, and as gauged by funding, they performed 36 percent of Canada's R&D activities in 2007. In the U.S. comparatively, universities accounted for 13 percent of the R&D performed in the country.

This week an estimated five million people will celebrate the first annual Global Entrepreneurship Week by taking part in one of the 13,000 events planned worldwide.

In the face of the spiraling unemployment in Greece and Spain, the European Union (EU) received encouraging news regarding the economic recovery of firms across its 27-member states.

In a recent speech in front of China's National People's Congress, China's Premier Wen Jiabao outlined the country's 12th five-year plan (2011-2115). The plan will focus heavily on boosting consumption through sustainable growth fueled by renewable energies and state support of strategic, emerging industries. Expenditures on R&D should reach 2.2 percent of GDP. Much of this R&D investment will be targeted in three sectors — healthcare, energy and technology.

Basic biomedical research has a greater academic impact and clinical research a greater societal impact over a 15 to 20 years timescale, according to the findings of Project Retrosight — a multinational, four-year study from RAND Europe and the Health Economics Research Group (HERG) at Brunel University. This study was based on data collected from 29 case studies on basic biomedical and clinical cardiovascular and stroke grant-funded, research projects in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Recent announcements of new and emerging technology incubators range from Google's selection of Cape Town, South Africa to launch a pilot incubator supporting technology entrepreneurs that it hopes to replicate globally to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley's plan to create a statewide business incubator focusing on workforce training. Select announcements from across the globe are highlighted below.

As global economies shift, developing nations are attempting to transition as suppliers of raw materials to nations that are producers of value-added goods. Africa has been a major supplier of raw materials to the developed world. However, it drastically lagged behind in the production of valued-added goods. Recently, African nations have attempted to reinvent their economic development efforts from suppliers to producers by developing programs to grow tech-based economies.

Governments of advanced economies are starting to believe as the 21st century advances significant opportunities for their technology-based product and service sectors will emerge from increasingly open, competitive and affluent global markets. To compete in this changing world, they are looking to expand access to capital for startups and entrepreneurs, support their research and development (R&D) infrastructure and address weaknesses in their national economies.

The Idaho Department of Commerce has named Gynii Gilliam as its new chief economic development officer. Gilliam brings more than 20 years of experience to the position. Most recently, she served as executive director of Bannock Development Corporation.

David Kerr, director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, will step down from the position Dec. 31.

Just what makes firms productive? Economists continue to refine their thinking on the interactions that enhance productivity. Knowledge capital and knowledge relatedness play an active role in increasing firm competitiveness, especially in large, high-tech manufacturing sectors, according to a study presented at a recent conference of the Groupe de Recherche en Economie.

Money is following the jobs and excitement that represents China's economy these days according to an annual survey of equity investments in China mainland businesses. Compiled by Chinese venture capital (VC) research and consulting firm Zero2IPO, the fourth annual survey found 60 firms made 253 investments totalling $1.269 billion (US) in China mainland or mainland-related enterprises in 2004.

It may not be getting much attention from the White House or Congress, but encouraging innovation and technology-based economic development through coordinated national strategies and initiatives is very much on the legislative agenda of many other countries around the world. Recent highlights from the past few weeks include (all dollar figures are for U.S. equivalencies):

To increase the commercial value and economic benefits of federal investments in scientific research, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is launching six new research and innovation facilities valued at over $125 million.

July has been a tech-friendly month for Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner. On July 14, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) named her "BIO Governor of the Year," recognizing her contributions toward growing the state's biotechnology industry, one of the strongest concentrations in the country. Further attesting to her grasp of biotech issues, Gov. Minner also serves as a co-chair of the National Governors Association Biotechnology Partnership.

If you consider North America's public investment to encourage economic growth through science and technology at the state or provincial government level, Ontario should be in your top 10. And the recent injection of $63 million for technology commercialization might have bumped the province of 12 million residents up a place or two.