Hearing sets stage for Senate to strengthen SBIR
The Senate Small Business Committee held a hearing yesterday on “Reauthorization of the SBA’s Innovation Programs,” which had a heavy emphasis on SBIR/STTR. Earlier in the day, Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) published a report on business investment, which places many shortcomings of the national economy at the feet of “sharedholder primacy” and calls for policies to incentivize investment by businesses into research and innovation. Among the topics raised during the hearing were making SBIR/STTR permanent, faster contracting, and additional support for innovative companies. Read more | 
SSTI Commentary: Reflections on renewing the middle class
Scarcity and systems issues on a biosphere level (ocean warming, acidification, deforestation, CO2 levels, etc.) aren’t the only reasons some people are beginning to have their doubts on whether capitalism is up to the challenges the world is facing. Some are wondering if the very success of our dominant economic model isn’t reaching limits of propriety of its own making. A growing number of this community, including some among the well-to-do, are beginning to wonder aloud what’s next? What comes after capitalism? Read more
Fed research explores employment opportunities for workers without college degrees
More than one-in-five jobs across America’s metropolitan areas are defined as opportunity occupations, those that pay above the national annual median wage and are accessible to workers without a bachelor’s degree, according to new research from authors at the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia and Cleveland. In Opportunity Occupations Revisited: Exploring Employment for Sub-baccalaureate Workers Across Metro Areas and Over Time,authors Kyle Fee and Lisa Nelson from the Cleveland Fed and Keith Wardrip from the Philadelphia Fed reexamine findings from a 2015 study. This update offers an in-depth analysis of the largest metropolitan areas across the country, finding that a region’s occupational mix and cost of living play a significant role in determining their share of opportunity employment. Read more
Benchmark report reveals threats to US science, tech leadership
While the U.S. continues to lead the world in science, technology and innovation, other nations are on track to catch and surpass the lead the country currently holds, according to a new report from the Task Force on American Innovation (TFIA). In Second Place America? Increasing Challenges to U.S. Scientific Leadership, TFIA, a non-partisan alliance of leading American companies and business associations, research university associations, and scientific societies, benchmarks the U.S. against other nations in R&D investment, knowledge production, education, workforce and high-tech sectors of the economy. The report holds that to maintain a global leadership status, which it calls critical to national security and future economic growth and prosperity, a renewed national commitment to invest in key federal science agencies such as NSF, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, NASA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology is necessary. Read more
Bipartisan bill would improve Manufacturing USA
Eight U. S. senators introduced a bill last week, endorsed by SSTI and more than two dozen organizations, that would provide performing Manufacturing USA centers with a path for continued federal support, while also better-incorporating the centers into other manufacturing and innovation resources around the country. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) represent a bipartisan coalition that is well-positioned to support the legislation through the U. S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Read more
Useful Stats
Per Capita Gross State Product, 1998-2018
Although North Dakota’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) has declined since 2013, the energy boom in earlier years gave the state the fastest increase over the past 10- and 20-year periods, according to an SSTI analysis of recently updated state GDP data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Beyond North Dakota, the 10 years from 2008 to 2018 benefitted per capita GDP in states with a prominent knowledge economy, led by New York, California, Washington and Massachusetts. In general, per-capita gross product serves as a useful metric because it can show a state’s relative economic performance against its peers and over time. This article examines state GDP per capita over the past 20 years. Read more 
Science & Innovation policy research hub seeking content; EDQ call for papers on rural economic development
The Fung Institute at the University of California Berkeley, with funding support from the National Science Foundation, has established a website to serve as a centralized hub for finding research papers, analyses, and case studies on science and innovation policy. Papers to be included may develop models, analytical tools, data, and metrics to enable science and innovation policymakers and TBED practitioners to improve the impacts derived from public investments and policy interventions. Read more
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