The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced the 2016 Growth Accelerator Fund competition. In its third year, the SBA will commit up to $3.95 million for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for monetary prizes of $50,000 each. This year, the SBA will partner with several other federal agencies – NIH, NSF, Department of Education, and USDA – to provide additional prizes to accelerators that assist entrepreneurs with submitting proposals for the Small Business Innovation (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Applications must be submitted by June 3.

Wells Fargo & Company released a five-year, company-wide corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy that includes significant commitments to inclusion, innovation, small business lending, and community investment. Its 2020 social commitment will target three commitment areas – diversity and social inclusion; economic empowerment; and, economic sustainability.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that they are seeking proposals for a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Institute, a part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). The $70 million Modular Chemical Process Intensification Institute will focus on developing breakthrough technologies that increase the energy efficiency of manufacturing processes used across an array of U.S. industries.

A new report from the Lumina Foundation finds the U.S. is making progress in the number of Americans holding high-quality credentials beyond high school diplomas. For the seventh straight year, the percentage of the country’s working age population (age 25-64 years) with a quality post-secondary credential increased, reaching 45.3 percent in 2014. Even with the progress that has been made, however, the U.S.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last month the availability of more than $11 million in grants to support rural broadband through its Community Connect grant program, which seeks to help fund broadband deployment into rural communities where it is not yet economically viable for private sector providers to deliver service. For FY 2016, the minimum grant amount is $100,000, while the maximum award is $3 million.

Vice President Joe Biden announced a $100 million competition to expand tuition-free community college programs that connect young Americans to in-demand jobs. To support a growing trend of free community college programs, America’s Promise Job-Driven Training grants (America’s Promise Grants) will provide federal funding for the creation and expansion of regional and sector partnerships between community colleges, local industries, other training providers, employers, and, the public workforce system targeted at in-demand middle and high-skilled jobs across the country.

While the first quarter of 2016 was slow for venture capital investments in the United Kingdom (UK), recent weeks have seen significant new developments in both financing and converting technologies from six UK universities into the marketplace.  The goal of these new funding initiatives is, in part, to improve the survival rate of small- and medium-sized businesses (only 45 percent of all UK startups survive beyond the first five years).

To mark the 10th anniversary of the SSTI Excellence in TBED awards program, we have made some exciting changes to the categories. Since last year, we have combined some categories with the intent of better reflecting the ever-evolving field of tech-based economic development and added a new category to reflect burgeoning activity in a new area.

On November 12, Gov. Jay Nixon announced $1 million in state funding to ARCH Grants to provide entrepreneurial support to St. Louis startups. ARCH Grants is a nonprofit organization that provides $50,000 equity-free grants and pro-bono services to entrepreneurs who locate their early stage businesses in St. Louis. This is Gov.

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) announced approximately $100 million in grant funds for the TechHire partnership grant program. The ETA anticipates that it will make up to 35 grants to support  pilot and scale public-private workforce development partnerships that can rapidly train workers for and connect them to well-paying, middle- and high-skilled, and high-growth jobs across a diversity of H-1B industries such as Information Technology (IT), healthcare, advanced manufacturing, financial services, and broadband.

Amazon announced the launch of Amazon Catalyst, a pilot grant program at the University of Washington to fund promising research to address complex global challenges, such as immigration and climate change. Awards will range from “tens of thousands” to $100,000 per grant. Amazon has not set a limit on the number of awards they will make, and will consider research in humanities and social sciences, as well as better funded areas like medicine and engineering. Students, faculty and staff are eligible to apply. There will be no deadlines or competition for the funds.

Governors in Massachusetts and Rhode Island have released details about their plans to boost innovative businesses in their respective states. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker offered a strategic plan to guide his administration’s economic development efforts, with an emphasis placed on fostering a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo announced the launch of three new incentive programs aimed at research-driven companies.

To support the growth of Northeast Ohio’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, The Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) announced a limited-partner investment in JumpStart's new for-profit $20M venture capital fund.

Nearly 10 million people are expected to participate in events during this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, launched November 16 by the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN). The first Global Entrepreneurship Week was held in 2008 with representatives from 37 countries. Now in its eighth year, more than 160 countries across the world will hold entrepreneurship-related events during the week. Although activities vary greatly in size and scope, they generally touch on three themes:

Across the globe, the proliferation of innovation-led economic development is typically viewed in an urban context. Despite cities receiving the bulk of the attention, researchers have begun to focus on how to leverage best practices in rural economic development. Just as is the case in nearly all economic development scenarios, practitioners and policymakers working in rural areas benefit from a better understanding of local strengths and opportunities, according to new research from the United States, Canada, and the European Union.

Funded through a small tax on extramural research budgets, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards are offered by 11 federal agencies with an overall goal of backing innovation by small businesses. With a typical maximum of $150,000 for phase I awards and $1 million for phase II awards, SBIR programs have had varying degrees of success – especially when factoring in their explicit mandate to enhance opportunities for women and minorities.

In the face of declining state funding and drawn-out budget negotiations, universities are moving beyond traditional budget procedures to secure funding for their economic development activities. Over the past few months, several universities have leveraged new sources of public and private funds to establish seed funds for university technology. These efforts are intended to increase the number of businesses emerging from their respective educational and research programs and spur regional economic prosperity.

Over 150 heads of state met in Paris this week, the largest group of leaders ever to attend a UN event in a single day, to address global climate change and the need for policies and technologies that will set the world on the path to a low-carbon, climate resilient future.

Corporate venture capital (VC) groups made over $2.3 billion in investments via 240 deals to the startup ecosystem during the third quarter of 2015. Corporate VC accounted for 14.1 percent of all venture capital dollars invested and 21.5 percent of all deals, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

A number of governors around the U.S. have already begun rolling out budget proposals for the next legislative session. This week, SSTI examines gubernatorial spending recommendations related to research, commercialization, STEM education and entrepreneurship in Florida and Wyoming.

Florida

The California Community College Board of Governors unanimously approved a comprehensive workforce development plan to coordinate efforts across its 113-college system to help California close its considerable job skills gap, which is defined as the state needing one million workers credentialed for middle-skill jobs.

Between the second quarters of 2014 and 2015, consumer spending significantly slowed, according to research from the JP Morgan Chase Institute. The institute used data from credit and debit card transactions to track spending in 15 major U.S. metropolitan areas. They found that most of the slowdown could be attributed to decreased spending among consumers 65 and older, and among middle- and high-income consumers. Also, while consumer spending declined among all businesses, larger businesses reduced their spending by a larger margin.

As universities become increasingly interested in the economic development dimension of their missions, it may be appropriate to consider entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology-based economic development activities in faculty advancement decisions, according to a new report from an Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) task force.

Overwhelming majorities of voters across the nation and in key swing states support a comprehensive initiative designed to parlay the United States’ strong research base into greater economic prosperity and a higher quality of life for all. These findings come from a new survey conducted for the Innovation Advocacy Council, an initiative of SSTI, by the bipartisan team of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and TargetPoint Consulting.

In many industrialized countries, including the U.S., government spending on research and development (R&D) has stagnated since the beginning of the decade. A new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) highlights this trend, noting that overall government R&D spending in the group’s 34 member countries has reverted to levels at the beginning of the century. Recent data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) reveals that U.S.