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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently published statutorily-required five-year inflation adjustments for various limits placed on crowdfunding, and the increases are substantial.

On the heels of President Biden’s recent announcement of a Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative to boost the United States bioeconomy, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released The Bioeconomy: A Primer, which examines the future of the bioeconomy, explores the United States’ competitiveness in global

On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill to extend the SBIR, STTR and related pilot programs through Sept. 30, 2025. The House is expected to act on the legislation next week, just ahead of the current expiration at the end of this month.

A recent report by DocSend Inc., a subsidiary of DropBox, surveyed over 300 pre-seed startups, finding that on average, in terms of gender alone, mixed teams raise the most funds, while all-male teams raise the least. In terms of both gender and race, on average, mixed gendered teams with minority members raise the most funds while all-male teams with no minority members raise the least.

Gov. Gavin Newson of California announced that the state is approved for $1.1 billion of funding from the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), which represents the largest funding amount that has been approved in the SSBCI program.

The White House announced a new Office on Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation to coordinate the policymaking process for the energy and infrastructure provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, legislation that has been called the single biggest climate investment in U.S. history.

Gov. Tom Wolf awarded $246.8 million to Pennsylvania local economic development partners through the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) this week. The money is expected to help small, socially and economically disadvantaged businesses grow. The Pennsylvania Department of community and Economic Development (DCED) will distribute the funds to partners who will administer the funding to qualifying businesses.

Taking what Gov.

Recent findings from a study titled The Death of Downtown? Pandemic Recovery Trajectories across 62 North American Cities, conducted by a group of six researchers at the University of California’s Berkeley campus's Institute of Governmental Studies found that U.S.

On the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy's Moonshot Address, President Biden traveled to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum to highlight progress toward his administration's Moonshot Program to combat cancer and expand the U.S. bioeconomy. This announcement included Biden's pick for the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and the signing of an executive order to institute a National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative.

States with top-ranking university AI research programs garner a greater number of Phase II AI-related SBIR awards, according to a working paper from the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Researchers there investigated state variations in the distribution of Phase II SBIR research projects focused on artificial intelligence (AI). The authors of the paper hypothesized that the state-by-state variations are related to the presence of a research university with a “Top 10” AI program in each state.

The recently approved Inflation Reduction Act with new incentives for electric vehicle ownership and energy efficiency is likely to continue a trend among states for the location of major economic development projects, a trend toward everything mega—megasites, megadeals, mega factories, and mega projects.

In what is being heralded as one of the most impactful regional economic development initiatives in decades, 21 coalition winners — including three SSTI members as coalition leads — of the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge have been announced. Each of the awardees will receive between $25 million and $65 million to fund 123 projects designed to advance economies across 24 states.

The nonprofit research institute, RTI International, has been named the grant winner to coordinate and lead a Community of Practice (CoP) for the Build Back Better Regional Challenge’s 60 finalist coalitions. While the 21 awardees of the challenge will go on to build out their proposed programs, the CoP is intended to build long-term connections among all 60 coalition finalists, which were awarded from 529 applications.

Pennsylvania is losing ground in expanding manufacturing opportunities in the state, according to the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Advisory Council, which has issued a playbook to help build the sector’s competitiveness and highlights recommendations for the state to increase its manufacturing opportunities. 

Five additional state plans for the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) have received approval from the U.S. Department of Treasury, bringing the current total of announced states to 19.

A group of seven researchers analyzed upwards of one million National Science Foundation (NSF) proposals over a 23-year period (1996-2019) and found patterns of racialized disparities where white principal investigators (PIs) were consistently funded at higher rates (8+ percent) than most non-white PIs.

A new $73.5 million grant opportunity using funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is aimed at growing and supporting the development of new economic opportunities across multiple states in Appalachia.

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: 

Jurisdictions that were early EPSCoR participants benefitted more from the program with higher project approval rates, but whether program goals are being met is unclear, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report examining National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The GAO report and another from the subcommittee on the Future of EPSCoR looked at the effectiveness of the program and made recommendations for improvement.

The federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, providing nearly $4 billion in technology research and development funding, expire — in just six weeks — on Sept. 30. Unlike many federal programs that regularly operate beyond the end of their authorization, there is no direct SBIR appropriation that will ensure the program continues as-is without congressional action. Instead, SBIR would be on an agency-by-agency basis.

President Joe Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act, a $740-billion bill that largely focuses on clean energy and climate resiliency, deficit reduction and health care, funded through tax changes.

A new open topic approach used by the U.S. Air Force in issuing Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards coincided with an overall increase in the agency’s SBIR/STTR participation figures and proposal processing times, according to a recent federal analysis. The U.S.

Accelerators, incubators and entrepreneurial assistance programs work to ensure their startups understand their product’s market competition, customers, and supply chain. As it turns out, that’s also good advice for small research-based firms trying to move from SBIR proof-of-concept funding to securing the larger Phase II awards.

With the fiscal year coming to a close and the U.S. Senate having yet to advance any appropriations bills for the next year, the Senate Democrats have released their proposals for FY 2023 funding levels. Due to the potential for substantial changes when the final FY 2023 budget is passed, this article only covers specific funding levels that are a high priority for the tech-based economic development (TBED) field.