The U.S. has long been the global leader in science and engineering (S&E), but that position is being increasingly challenged with China likely surpassing the U.S. in total Research and Development (R&D) investment in 2019. Accounting for this changing landscape, the National Science Board (NSB) recently released its Vision 2030 report.

Across the U.S., the federal government provided 53 percent of R&D funding at institutions of higher education in FY 2018. Those institutions provided 26 percent of the funding themselves, and most of the remainder was provided by a mix of nonprofit organizations (7 percent), industry (6 percent), and state and local government (5 percent). The specific contributions varied from state to state, however, with some relying more on specific relationships to support R&D within the state.

NSF is issuing its first set of awards from the Convergence Accelerator Pilot. The new program is intended to accelerate use-inspired, convergence research in areas of national importance through partnerships between academic and non-academic stakeholders. The Convergence Accelerator (C-Accel) pilot program focuses on two of the NSF’s “10 Big Ideas” and emphasizes the importance of deliverable-oriented, multidisciplinary teams.

On July 31, OMB Director Mike Mulvaney distributed a memo outlining eight priority R&D subjects and five practices for leveraging R&D resources more effectively.

Each year, the National Science Foundation releases a report on Science and Engineering Indicators, a voluminous compilation of data and analysis that looks at metrics which are particularly relevant to the field of technology-based economic development.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) released updated Science and Engineering (S&E) State Profiles – an online portal that provides state-level rankings and totals of S&E data for the 50 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The portal also provides a data tool that allows users to compare up to seven states or download entire data sets. In the most recent update, NSF allows user to explore data for the years 2015 to 2017. S&T indicator by state include, but are not limited to:

As the National Science Foundation points out in a recent press release, people of Hispanic descent comprise 16 percent of the U.S. workforce, but only 6 percent of people working in STEM-related occupations.  Other minorities, including African Americans and Native Americans are also underrepresented in the career paths most critical to maintain American preeminence in innovation and science. New funding rounds distributed by three federal initiatives at NSF and NASA intend to help improve the imbalance.

We are excited to be partnering with NSF during SSTI’s Annual Conference, Sept.9 through 11 in Providence, Rhode Island, to bring you the latest information and ideas on SBIR/STTR and university/industry partnerships.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced awards for Conceptualization Grants (CG) for Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes, which are large-scale interdisciplinary research projects that aim to advance the frontiers of quantum information science and engineering.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the 2026 Idea Machine – a prize competition to help set the U.S. agenda for future fundamental research in science and engineering. Participants can earn cash prizes and receive public recognition by submitting the pressing research questions that need to be answered in the coming decade.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced approximately $20 million in new funding through its Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program. The PFI program offers NSF-funded researchers at institutions of higher education opportunities to connect new knowledge to societal benefit through translational research efforts and/or partnerships that encourage, enhance, and accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship.

The life-risking delay in emergency response for rural areas, inadequate health care access in “medical deserts,” drinking water contamination, and the urgency of need for broad dissemination of information regarding natural disasters such as flooding and landslides are among the themes explored for civically-focused innovation in the latest round of competition for grants from the National Science Foundation’s Smart  & Connected Communities (SCC) program.

With final passage and signage pending at the time of publication, the federal budget for FY 2018 provides relatively strong support for innovation economies. The Regional Innovation Strategies program is funded at $21 million, MEP at $140 million and the National Science Foundation at $7.8 billion, increases for all organizations. Other notable innovation programs receiving at least level funding are SBA’s cluster and accelerator programs, DOE’s ARPA-E, NASA science and the National Institutes of Health.

States invested $1.1 billion into health-related R&D expenditures in FY 2017 according to the newest results from the annual survey of state government R&D, conducted by the National Science Foundation.  Increasing by 13 percent from the previous year, health-related R&D helped push overall state government spending on R&D up by 7 percent over the 2016 figures. State investments in energy-related R&D, on the other hand, dropped by 16.6 percent ($61 million) to a total of $307 million in FY 2017.

The White House Office of Management and Budget released Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century, a plan for reorganizing federal agencies. On topics related to innovation, the wide-ranging plan would make changes to education, workforce, economic development, small business and more. Some of the suggestions could advance with administrative actions only, while many will require congressional support.

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), USDA, is announcing the I-FAST prize competition to develop and implement the Innovations in Food and Agricultural Science and Technology (I-FAST) program. NIFA will partner with NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) to provide entrepreneurship training to NIFA grantees under this pilot program. The goals are to identify valuable product opportunities that can emerge from NIFA supported academic research. Over six months, the selected teams will learn what it will take to achieve an economic impact with their particular innovation.

The Fung Institute at the University of California Berkeley, with funding support from the National Science Foundation, has established a website to serve as a centralized hub for finding research papers, analyses, and case studies on science and innovation policy. Papers to be included may develop models, analytical tools, data, and metrics to enable science and innovation policymakers and TBED practitioners to improve the impacts derived from public investments and policy interventions. 

Software plays an increasingly large role in private sector research and development (R&D) expenditures, according to new research from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Based on a recent change in how the BEA treats software R&D in its calculations for gross domestic product (GDP) and other metrics, the analysis finds that the share of business R&D coming from software increased from 20 percent in 2006 to 32 percent in 2016, a 60 percent increase. The authors also look at longer-term trends in business R&D expenditures on software, as well as an analysis of software R&D in manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries.

Following President Joe Biden’s signing of the FY 2022 budget, yesterday the National Science Foundation announced the formation of the Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate that was approved in the bill.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator intends to provide solutions with nationwide social impact at an accelerated pace. Recently, NSF announced the addition of three new research tracks for the 2022 cohort: Track H, Track I, and Track J. The latest research track topics for the NSF Convergence Accelerator include:

To expand the innovation capacity in the nation, the United States needs to leverage resources, creativity, and ingenuity from across all geographic regions. The National Science Foundation this week announced a new program in support of these efforts: the NSF Regional Innovation Engines, or NSF Engines program.

Private sector investment into research and development (R&D) is a critical component of innovation, new product development, and regional economic vitality. As a substantial performer and funder of R&D in the United States, the strength of private industry’s R&D activity in a region can provide an indication of the region’s capacity for developing and bringing innovative technologies to market.

An SSTI analysis of business R&D employment data from the National Science Foundation’s recently updated 2019 Business Enterprise R&D (BERD) Survey finds that nationally in 2019, R&D employment at private businesses accounted for 8.6 percent of total employment. The states where the business R&D employment shares of total employment were the greatest in 2019 were Washington (20.9 percent); Massachusetts (19.3 percent); California (17.7 percent); New Hampshire (14.7 percent); and Michigan (12.7 percent).

Recognizing that innovation ecosystems require broad networks of partners working together and knowing that many institutions of higher education (IHEs) lack the research capacity to be able to participate in external partnerships, the NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships invites proposals from Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), and two-year institutions with limited or no research capacity to apply for the support necessary to become equitable partners with teams competing under the current and subsequent NSF Engine

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced four new Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) that will focus on agriculture, health, manufacturing and smart cities. The research centers will receive $104 million over five years and will be aimed at finding more sustainable solutions to food production, autonomous manufacturing systems, human health and the built environment, and hyperlocal street technology. The four research centers are: