A new report underscores the shifting position of the United States in the global R&D competition and the continuing rise of China. While two charts from the National Science Board’s The State of U.S. Science and Engineering summarize the changing nature of this international struggle, the underlying data on where the U.S. and China are investing their resources should really grab the attention of policymakers and one would hope motivate action by the U.S.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has set out to address the core risks that currently threaten the United States' bioeconomy with the release of their report Safeguarding the Bioeconomy. While the U.S.

Brookings and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) are proposing a new concentration of federal investment into 10 metros with a goal of creating new innovation hubs. The Case for Growth Centers is likely an early entry of what will be many suggestions between now and next November for “massive federal” policies, but may be one of the most directly relevant to regional innovation economies.

Turning good intentions into actions is part of the motivation behind a recent report from the Community Strategies Group (CSG) of the Aspen Institute. The report, Rural Development Hubs: Strengthening America’s Rural Innovation Infrastructure, focuses on actions that could build capacity to advance rural community and economic development to improve equity, health and prosperity for future generations.

SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council has sent letters to congressional leadership outlining emergency actions needed to support tech- and innovation-driven businesses and recovery-focused programs to leverage American ingenuity for economic stimulus. The letters call for expanding SBA’s technical assistance to startups, leveraging EDA’s Build to Scale program, catalyzing new programs for equity investment and commercialization, and incorporating innovation into any infrastructure initiative.

A recent report by Breakthrough Energy, co-chaired by former Energy secretary Ernest Moniz, calls for a better policy approach to supporting clean energy. Their premise is that America has led the way in this industry, but that the way forward requires innovation on a greater scale than we have achieved before, and that this, in turn, requires better coordination of systems.

As covered in the last Weekly Digest, the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held a hearing on reauthorizing SBA’s innovation programs. SSTI was invited to add to the hearing’s record, and our letter supporting SBIR/STTR pilot programs, FAST and entrepreneurial development programs is produced, below.

Dear Chairman Rubio and Ranking Member Cardin:

Shifts in the American economy have resulted in a myriad of challenges including workers without the necessary skills for today’s jobs, lack of wage increases for low- and middle-income worker and a shrinking labor force participation rate.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a paper making recommendations to improve federal technology transfer. Recommendations are organized around five topics: regulation and administration, private-sector engagement, R&D workforce, tech transfer tools, and metrics and benchmarks. These recommendations — and the responses they generate — are expected to lead to regulatory and legislative proposals over the course of the next two years.

The federal government has not developed strategic economic intelligence to understand the competitive position of its traded sectors, and the time is now for a more advanced technology strategy and that will require a better data collection system. That is one of the key takeaways of a recent report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). The report identifies three key areas with major statistical gaps and calls on Congress to fund modernization and expansion of federal statistical agency IT systems.

The White House has released reviews from the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Defense, and Health and Human Services in response to the president’s Executive Order on “America’s Supply Chains.” Vulnerabilities in supply chains were assessed in four key product areas: semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging; large capacity batteries; critical mineral and materials; and, pharmaceuticals and advanced pharm

COVID-19 has generated an economic crisis that is, thankfully, unique to our lifetimes. If we are to recover efficiently as a country, then the policy response must be similarly unique, addressing multiple needs along different time scales. Many people are looking to the Great Recession for lessons on how to move forward, but there are critical contrasts between the two crises that have important implications for the solutions we should consider.

[Update Oct. 1] Editor’s note: On Sept. 23, the Biden campaign announced a “Small Business and Entrepreneurship Advisory Council.” A description has been added to the “Small Business” section of this article.

After more than a year of research and facing greater disruption to the workforce than imagined at the outset, the National Governors Association (NGA) has released a guide for governors and state policymakers to help build a technologically resilient workforce.

SSTI and the Small Business Technology Council circulated a letter to Congress calling for reauthorization of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The letter has been signed by more than 100 organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Angel Capital Association, Association of University Research Parks and dozens of SSTI members. Without congressional action, the programs will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

Outlining the need for a new national effort to build regional innovation economies, a panel of experts gave testimony to the Research and Technology subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, chaired by Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). The panel focused on how regions have developed their innovation economies and how those experiences could be replicated across the country with federal support.

Vulnerabilities in the international networks that supply goods and services needed for finished products used by the Department of Defense were exposed to a higher degree during the pandemic, and became the subject of a congressional Armed Services task force. The bipartisan Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force was established to make the security of the U.S.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators published Driving U.S. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy in the United States Senate. The roadmap encourages the executive branch and the Senate Appropriations Committee to reach the $32 billion per year non-defense AI innovation spending level proposed by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

The federal government spending on non-defense AI R&D has increased from $560 million in fiscal year 2018 to $2.1 billion in 2023, according to the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence report released in the closing month of the 118th session.

A report many years in the making was released this week by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) that, for the first time in the organization’s history, confronts racism in its title. After the summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, federal agencies and private foundations prioritized sponsoring a report on antiracism and diversity, equity and inclusion, focused on science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEMM).

In the absence of cohesive federal policies or regulations involving the growing development and use of artificial intelligence (AI), states’ governors and lawmakers are undertaking studies and crafting legislation that seeks to balance governance and implementation of this evolving technology. The studies and legislation are intended to protect constituents from AI’s possible harms without hindering potential uses or contributions of AI to government services or medical, science, business, and educational advancements.