TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council A2 - Charles W. Wessner TI - Growing Innovation Clusters for American Prosperity: Summary of a Symposium SN - DO - 10.17226/12926 PY - 2011 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/12926/growing-innovation-clusters-for-american-prosperity-summary-of-a-symposium PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Industry and Labor AB - Responding to the challenges of fostering regional growth and employment in an increasingly competitive global economy, many U.S. states and regions have developed programs to attract and grow companies as well as attract the talent and resources necessary to develop innovation clusters. These state and regionally based initiatives have a broad range of goals and increasingly include significant resources, often with a sectoral focus and often in partnership with foundations and universities. These are being joined by recent initiatives to coordinate and concentrate investments from a variety of federal agencies that provide significant resources to develop regional centers of innovation, business incubators, and other strategies to encourage entrepreneurship and high-tech development. This has led to renewed interest in understanding the nature of innovation clusters and public policies associated with successful cluster development. The Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP), conducted a symposium which brought together state and federal government officials, leading analysts, congressional staff, and other stakeholders to explore the role of clusters in promoting economic growth, the government's role in stimulating clusters, and the role of universities and foundations in their development. Growing Innovation Clusters for American Prosperity captures the presentations and discussions of the 2009 STEP symposium on innovation clusters. It includes an overview highlighting key issues raised at the meeting and a summary of the meeting's presentations. This report has been prepared by the workshop rapporteur as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council A2 - Charles W. Wessner TI - Building the Ohio Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium SN - DO - 10.17226/13538 PY - 2013 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/13538/building-the-ohio-innovation-economy-summary-of-a-symposium PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Industry and Labor AB - Since 1991, the National Research Council, under the auspices of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, has undertaken a program of activities to improve policymakers' understandings of the interconnections of science, technology, and economic policy and their importance for the American economy and its international competitive position. The Board's activities have corresponded with increased policy recognition of the importance of knowledge and technology to economic growth. One important element of STEP's analysis concerns the growth and impact of foreign technology programs. U.S. competitors have launched substantial programs to support new technologies, small firm development, and consortia among large and small firms to strengthen national and regional positions in strategic sectors. Some governments overseas have chosen to provide public support to innovation to overcome the market imperfections apparent in their national innovation systems. They believe that the rising costs and risks associated with new potentially high-payoff technologies, and the growing global dispersal of technical expertise, underscore the need for national R&D programs to support new and existing high-technology firms within their borders. Similarly, many state and local governments and regional entities in the United States are undertaking a variety of initiatives to enhance local economic development and employment through investment programs designed to attract knowledge-based industries and grow innovation clusters. These state and regional programs and associated policy measures are of great interest for their potential contributions to growth and U.S. competitiveness and for the "best practice" lessons that they offer for other state and regional programs. STEP's project on State and Regional Innovation Initiatives is intended to generate a better understanding of the challenges associated with the transition of research into products, the practices associated with successful state and regional programs, and their interaction with federal programs and private initiatives. The study seeks to achieve this goal through a series of complementary assessments of state, regional, and federal initiatives; analyses of specific industries and technologies from the perspective of crafting supportive public policy at all three levels; and outreach to multiple stakeholders. Building the Ohio Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium explains the of the study, which is to improve the operation of state and regional programs and, collectively, enhance their impact. ER - TY - BOOK AU - Transportation Research Board TI - Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector: Special Report 289 DO - 10.17226/12019 PY - 2007 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/12019/building-the-road-safety-profession-in-the-public-sector-special PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Transportation and Infrastructure KW - Industry and Labor AB - TRB Special Report 289: Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector examines the growing need for experts at all levels of government to develop and implement systems- and science-based approaches to road safety management. According to the committee that authored the report, the lack of professional recognition and comprehensive road safety education and training opportunities is threatening the ability of public agencies to build the knowledgeable and skilled road safety workforce that is needed to make safety advances. To address this need, the report recommends that the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the Governors Highway Safety Association forge a broad-based alliance of public, private, and educational organizations to champion the road safety profession. The report recommends that the alliance encourage states to take advantage of federal workforce training funds for the purpose of developing road safety professionals and to advocate comprehensive road safety education and training by universities, including the many publicly funded transportation and safety research centers. In addition, the report urges the alliance to explore the creation of one or more specialized institutes to provide comprehensive instruction and training for road safety professionals. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council A2 - Charles W. Wessner TI - An Assessment of the SBIR Program at the National Institutes of Health SN - DO - 10.17226/11964 PY - 2009 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11964/an-assessment-of-the-sbir-program-at-the-national-institutes-of-health PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Health and Medicine KW - Industry and Labor AB - The SBIR program allocates 2.5 percent of 11 federal agencies' extramural R&D budgets to fund R&D projects by small businesses, providing approximately $2 billion annually in competitive awards. At the request of Congress the National Academies conducted a comprehensive study of how the SBIR program has stimulated technological innovation and used small businesses to meet federal research and development needs. Drawing substantially on new data collection, this book examines the SBIR program at the National Institutes of Health and makes recommendations for improvements. Separate reports will assess the SBIR program at DOD, NSF, DOE, and NASA, respectively, along with a comprehensive report on the entire program. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Building a Workforce for the Information Economy SN - DO - 10.17226/9830 PY - 2001 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/9830/building-a-workforce-for-the-information-economy PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Industry and Labor KW - Behavioral and Social Sciences AB - A look at any newspaper's employment section suggests that competition for qualified workers in information technology (IT) is intense. Yet even experts disagree on not only the actual supply versus demand for IT workers but also on whether the nation should take any action on this economically important issue. Building a Workforce for the Information Economy offers an in-depth look at IT. workers—where they work and what they do—and the policy issues they inspire. It also illuminates numerous areas that have been questioned in political debates: Where do people in IT jobs come from, and what kind of education and training matter most for them? Are employers' and workers' experiences similar or different in various parts of the country? How do citizens of other countries factor into the U.S. IT workforce? What do we know about IT career paths, and what does that imply for IT workers as they age? And can we measure what matters? The committee identifies characteristics that differentiate IT work from other categories of high-tech work, including an informative contrast with biotechnology. The book also looks at the capacity of the U.S. educational system and of employer training programs to produce qualified workers. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Academy of Sciences AU - National Academy of Engineering AU - Institute of Medicine TI - Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future SN - DO - 10.17226/11463 PY - 2007 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11463/rising-above-the-gathering-storm-energizing-and-employing-america-for PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Industry and Labor KW - Education KW - Engineering and Technology KW - Policy for Science and Technology AB - In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation's needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy: 1) Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; 2) Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research; 3) Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and 4) Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. Rising Above the Gathering Storm will be of great interest to federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, public decision makers, research sponsors, regulatory analysts, and scholars. ER - TY - BOOK AU - Transportation Research Board TI - The Fuel Tax and Alternatives for Transportation Funding: Special Report 285 DO - 10.17226/11568 PY - 2006 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11568/the-fuel-tax-and-alternatives-for-transportation-funding-special-report PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Transportation and Infrastructure KW - Industry and Labor AB - TRB Special Report 285: The Fuel Tax and Alternatives for Transportation Funding examines the viability of existing revenue sources, the merits of present transportation finance arrangements, and potential directions for reform of transportation finance. According to the report, fuel taxes can remain the primary funding source for the nation's highways for at least another decade, but eventually replacing them with a system for metering road use and charging accordingly could benefit travelers and the public. In addition, the committee that developed the report suggests that while the current funding system helps maintain existing highways and build new ones and ensures that users pay most of these costs, it does not help transportation agencies alleviate congestion or target investment in the most valuable projects. ER -