A bipartisan group of 17 governors signed the Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future – a joint commitment to support the deployment of renewable, cleaner and more efficient energy technologies and other solutions to make the U.S. economy more productive and resilient as well as spur job creation in member states.

Governors around the country continue to lay out priorities for the next legislative session. In the coming weeks, SSTI will review gubernatorial addresses and budget proposals related to economic development. This week, we highlight developments in Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey.

The National Governors Association’s (NGA) Center for Best Practices launched the 2016 Policy Academy on Scaling Work-Based Learning – a pilot program in six states that blends work experience and applied learning to develop youth and young adults’ foundational and technical skills to expand their education, career and employment opportunities. The goal of the program is to connect 16- to 29-year-olds with middle-skills career opportunities in STEM-intensive industries such as advanced manufacturing, health care, information technology and energy.

Illinois and Michigan are among the few states that support regular comprehensive examinations of the role higher education plays in the overall innovation economy. Organizations in both states recently completed studies on university-generated entrepreneurship, licensing, investment and employment, finding a steady rise in university economic impact over the past five years.  In both cases, the increase in university impact was linked to an expanding university role in supporting entrepreneurs and researchers.

With the start of the new year, many governors around the country have begun laying out priorities for the next legislative session. In the coming weeks, SSTI will review gubernatorial addresses and budget proposals related to economic development. This week, we highlight developments in Idaho, Iowa and New York.

Leaders in Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha and St. Louis have teamed up to leverage their respective resources and help build an economic mega-region in the center of the country. The Heartland Civic Collaborative will focus on four main areas of opportunity: transportation, federal advocacy, life science and entrepreneurship. In the coming months, the collaborative plans to begin work on an entrepreneurial metrics dashboard for the participating metros and a map of life sciences research assets.

This week, leaders in Illinois and New Mexico announced new investments to help seed and early stage technology startups access equity capital. The Illinois Treasurer will launch the Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, which would invest $220 million over the next three years in 15-20 funds across the state. No more than 15 percent of the money will be placed with any particular fund. The state’s investment will target emerging tech companies, beginning later this quarter.

At his State of the State address last week, Gov. Bruce Rauner announced that Illinois’ principal economic development organization, the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, as well as some of the state’s business leaders will collaborate to organize a newly formed private, nonprofit organization exclusively focused on increasing Illinois’ competitiveness for job creation and investment.

Building stronger connections between universities and businesses in key industries could help generate new jobs, startups and technologies, according to an S&T roadmap released by the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC). ISTC notes that the division between the state’s research universities and companies has limited Illinois’ competitiveness, despite its high overall level of innovative activity.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a coalition of Chicago organizations and private businesses have announced plans to place at least 1,000 workers in manufacturing jobs. The mayor’s 2015 budget proposal, presented this week, includes $200,000 for the effort, with another $750,000 in funds and in-kind contributions from partners. Recent growth in the region’s manufacturing sector has created an urgent need for workers with specific training and apprenticeships, according to the mayor’s announcement.

With Gov. Pat Quinn, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Sen.

The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) is a new research facility for scientists and engineers from Fermilab, Argonne, and Illinois universities to work alongside industrial partners to develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and apply them to areas such as computing, health, indus

Even after equity crowdfunding reached a milestone earlier this month with new Securities Exchange Commission proposed rule changes, state legislatures across the country continue to pass intrastate crowdfunding bills.