In the “2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast,” researchers from Battelle and R&D Magazine project consistent and positive global R&D spending in 2011. Global R&D (including public, private and nonprofit spending) is projected to increase by 3.6 percent from $1.15 trillion to almost $1.2 trillion. However, 2011 R&D as a percentage of global GDP will remain constant at 1.9 percent. This increase is attributed to a shift in the geographic distribution of investment.

Lawmakers called into special session on Friday approved a $75 million incentive package for a Texas-based energy company to build five biofuel facilities in the state expected to generate 1,000 new jobs through a total $500 million investment. The package approved by lawmakers also includes $4 million for a workforce training fund through the state's institutions of higher education and up to $2 million for biomass research at Alcorn State University and Mississippi State University.

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.

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.

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.

New energy plans unveiled by governors in Connecticut and Mississippi promise to capitalize on current strengths, build capacity for future projects, and encourage public-private partnerships to scale up clean energy projects and create jobs by attracting more R&D investment to the states. Connecticut's draft strategy proposes economic incentives to drive down costs of new technology and maximize the use of clean energy finance banks — an approach that is heralded as a model for other states in a recent policy report.

In an era of tightening fiscal constraints, states have to make tough decisions, establish clear economic development funding priorities and transform their economic development models to take advantage of immediate opportunities and position their state for long-term economic growth. Mississippi, Oklahoma and Washington have released state-specific strategic plans that make those tough decisions by focusing their resources on key science & technology (S&T) areas to address the economic impacts of the Great Recession and position the state for future prosperity.

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.

Tom Walker is departing i2E to join TechColumbus as CEO. Walker, a founding member of i2E, has served the private nonprofit for 14 years. Walker replaces Tim Haynes, who has been serving as interim CEO.

Mark Herzog will step down as executive director of the Virginia Biotechnology Association on June 1. Herzog will serve as senior vice president for corporate and government affairs at Health Diagnostic Laboratory, a Richmond-based company that conducts clinical tests.

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.

With less than three months until the start of the 2012 legislative session for many states, governors and state economic development groups are working to define areas of investment seen as key to their state's competitiveness. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott unveiled a job creation and growth agenda that prioritizes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education to produce more graduates for a competitive workforce. Meanwhile, leaders in Mississippi and Virginia issued reports that identify industry sectors most likely to grow their states' economies.

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):