To help meet the goals of Virginia's Top Jobs Act enacted earlier this year, Gov. Bob McDonnell proposed $200 million in additional higher education funding over the next two years. A large portion of the new funds would support cancer and high-tech research, competitive research grant awards, and efforts to graduate more science, technology, engineering, mathematics and healthcare (STEM-H) majors.
The European Union (EU) released its first competitiveness report on all 27 EU member nations and six associated countries — Innovation Union Competitiveness Report 2011. Providing a deeper perspective on European R&D intensity, the report is intended to monitor the progress towards EU and national R&D headline targets and provide economic evidence and analysis to underpin the development of EU and national innovation policies. Twelve key findings are highlighted within the report including:
The Canadian government must focus its research and development (R&D) support efforts on "the goal of growing innovative firms into larger enterprises, rooted in Canada but facing outward to the world and equipped to compete with the best," according to Innovation Canada: A Call to Action — a new report commissioned by the Honorable Gary Goodyear, the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology. The authors contends that Canada has a solid foundation to build its knowledge economy.
As budgets for economic development tighten across all sectors, measuring and reporting impact becomes even more crucial for sustaining support. The Association of University Research Parks points to three impressive impact reports released this year from Indiana's Purdue Research Park, Nebraska Technology Park and North Dakota State University Research and Technology Park.
A newly established policy academy providing guidance and technical assistance will help seven states improve their environment for innovation and align state R&D investments, workforce development and education systems with current and future needs of advanced manufacturing industries. The policy academy will help each state develop a plan or overcome barriers for putting a plan into action through a highly interactive team-based process that includes input from NGA, MEP, EDA, SSTI, private sector consultants, and research organizations.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that it will award $74 million total for the creation of four interdisciplinary research and education centers as part of the third generation of NSF Engineering Research Centers. In addition to their primary focus on commercialization and education, these centers will emphasize innovation, entrepreneurship, small business collaboration, and international partnerships. For the first time, two of the ERCs will be co-funded by the Department of Energy.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a $27.5 million, five-year grant to the University of Maryland for a multi-disciplinary research center focused on the interplay of human activity and healthy ecosystems. The grant is the largest ever received by the university and will provide funds for research in environmental sciences, public policy, engineering, computer science and economics.
About 60 percent of U.S. academic R&D spending support research in the life sciences, according to data released by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Engineering R&D, the second largest target of spending, accounted for 15.7 percent of total academic research expenditures. While California leads the country in total spending in every science and engineering field, the District of Columbia leads in per capita spending in life sciences, physical sciences, psychology and social sciences.
The District of Columbia leads the country in per capita academic R&D expenditures, spending about $543.19 per resident, according to new data released by the National Science Foundation. Maryland follows closely behind with $530.06 per resident, while Massachusetts ranks a distant third with $373.60. While California, New York and Texas lead in total expenditures, smaller states, such as North Dakota, Rhode Island and Hawaii place in the top 10 for per capita spending.
Europe needs increased and "smarter" investments in both public and private research and development (R&D) to address the European Union's (EU) "Innovation Emergency," according to the European Commission's 2011 Innovation Union Competitiveness Report. The commission contends it is necessary to accelerate investments into R&D to achieve the EU's target of 3 percent of GDP being spent on R&D. EU members currently invest approximately 2 percent of GDP on R&D spending.