The news that a drug has been developed that appears to significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19, understandably garnered international attention. While most of the coverage centered on Merck, dig a bit deeper and one learns that Emory University researchers developed molnupiravir which Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have licensed.

Benson Hill, a unicorn (a startup valued over $1 billion) that closed its deal to become a public company last week, was able to leverage several sources of public capital to accelerate its early success. The St. Louis-based agricultural technology company uses machine learning and genome editing to facilitate the production of sustainable and healthy crops.

The findings from a recent webinar and report suggest that Employment Social Enterprises (ESEs) are significant market-based mechanisms that can address workforce misalignment by supplying employers with skilled workers while increasing economic mobility and addressing structural employment barriers.

Indiana and Illinois are two of the most recent states to implement innovation voucher programs, adding another tool to their efforts to increase economic activity among innovators and entrepreneurs.

Foundations, in almost all of their stripes, represent an underutilized but often willing partner to encourage regional innovation. Relationships may take time to nurture, but the resulting collaborations can be of critical importance for advancing your local TBED agenda. To spur your thinking, the six examples below from the past three weeks alone show the various ways foundations are stepping up to help support regional innovation and entrepreneurship.

Support for small companies has long been a pillar of federal and state policies meant to drive business formation, job creation, and the resulting spillover economic benefits for regional economies. The debate remains, however, about whether smaller or larger businesses play an outsized role in the nation’s economy.

Five clusters have been added to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Regional clusters Initiative, according to information available through USASpending. The Regional Cluster Initiative was launched in 2010 to maximize the potential of clusters and better support small businesses. The initiative connects innovation assets so that small businesses can effectively leverage them to commercialize new technologies and expand into new markets.

President Joe Biden this morning delayed his planned departure for Europe to announce a framework for the Build Back Better Act, a $1.75 trillion plan that the president said he was confident could pass both houses of Congress.

A total of $29 million in grants will be awarded to 44 organizations across the country as part of the Scaling Pandemic Resilience through Innovation and Technology (SPRINT) Challenge provided by the Economic Development Administration. The SPRINT Challenge, with grants ranging from between $200,000 to $750,000, was developed last year with the goal of addressing the health and economic risks brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic through investments in entrepreneurship and innovation.

Last week, the Biden-Harris administration released an initial budget proposal for FY 2022 discretionary appropriations.

A presidential budget provides, in theory, a strategic vision for the more than $1 trillion in annual, discretionary spending of the federal government. In practice, Congress will pass a spending bill that reflects its own will. The value of the president’s budget is the window it offers into the administration’s priorities. The Biden-Harris Administration’s skinny budget indicates priorities that should excite those working to build regional innovation economies.

The Department of Defense is seeking comments and information on President Biden’s Executive Order, “America’s Supply Chains,” which directs several federal agency actions to secure and strengthen the country’s supply chains. The U.S. Department of Commerce is also seeking public input on a licensing or other pre-clearance process for entities engaging in certain information and communications technology and services transactions (ICTS Transactions).

If venture capital was water, then sea levels continue to rise.  Yet more and more innovation-based startups across the country seemingly are being left high and dry as private venture capitalists continue to push their money into bigger, later stage deals. Investors seem increasingly set to cruise toward cashing in on the currently hot exit path of public listings.

A recent hearing by the House science committee provided several experts, including Lee Cheatham from SSTI-member Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, an opportunity to discuss the importance of science and innovation to achieving a “clean energy future.” Comments by the panelists largely focused on the value of public-private partnerships, such as those modeled through SBIR/STTR, prize competitions, and joint research at national labs, to develo

The Kauffman Foundation has announced 17 organizations will share the $1.5 million in funding allocated through their Heartland Challenge. These grantees will work to solve specific challenges entrepreneurs in the heartland region — comprised of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas — face, and will participate in facilitated, peer-learning communities of practice to share knowledge across the region.

While business investments towards research and development have varied among states, the overall trend throughout the country has been a positive one. Business R&D funding has weathered two recessions over the past 20 years, with many states seeing investments grow beyond their pre-recession levels. While the scope of COVID-19’s economic impact continues to grow, business R&D investment has shown a strong history of recovering from, and building beyond, national financial downturns.

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.

Non-college workers who long found refuge and economic mobility in thriving cities have seen those opportunities diminish and in turn have moved out of the areas. Although cities remain vibrant for workers with advanced degrees, “the urban skills and earnings escalator for non-college workers has lost its ability to lift workers up the income ladder,” finds David Autor in his recent research brief.

A leading technology association has stepped up to positively impact tech diversity and inclusion through a new challenge that aims to double the percentage of the state’s Black and Latinx tech workers — currently at 5 and 7 percent respectively — by the end of the decade.

The importance of higher education institutions in helping rural communities build innovation-based ecosystems has been detailed in a report released by the Center on Rural Innovation. Higher Ed’s Key Role In Rural Innovation Ecosystems profiles 10 colleges and universities that have been engaged in their area’s innovation environment and explores what techniques each institution has found most useful in building that ecosystem.

More than 500 colleges and universities nationwide showed warning signs in a stress test that was conducted before the pandemic according to a new series of reports by the Hechinger Report and NBC News. Declining enrollment and decreased state government support had left dozens of universities under financial stress. With the added pressures of the coronavirus pandemic, “the fabric of American higher education as become even more strained,” the report says.

A recent report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation examined the changing makeup of entrepreneurship over the period of 1996 to 2019, finding that older people, immigrants, and minorities are becoming new entrepreneurs at increasing rates.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson last week announced that $1 million of the state’s CARES Act funding will be used to create a grant for nonprofit and university-based coworker and incubator facilities. The grant will be administered by the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC). Organizations will be reimbursed with grant funds for expenses related to updating the facilities to encourage social distancing, adopting enhanced sanitation protocols or acquiring PPE to comply with the guidelines of the public health emergency.