Multilevel public funding for small business innovation: a review of US state SBIR match programs

US State governments invest in early-stage innovative activity as an economic development strategy. Nevertheless, attention directed at the public sector’s role in this capacity has been placed on federal policy actions overlooking the growing role of states. The primary aims of this paper are two-fold: (1) to articulate the motivations for multilevel public support for small business innovative activity, placing emphasis on state level incentives directed towards entrepreneurial activity; and (2) to empirically evaluate the State Match Phase I (SMP-I) program. The SMP-I program is a diffuse state level policy designed to complement the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program by offering noncompetitive matching funds to the state’s successful SBIR Phase I recipients. This offers an opportunity to examine the marginal impact of public R&D given the state intervention. This paper employs a state and year fixed effects model and considers two outcome variables—SBIR Phase II success rates and SBIR Phase I application activity. To account for industrial heterogeneity, the data are stratified by the federal mission agencies. Results from the empirical analysis indicate that the state match increases the Phase II success rates for firms participating in the National Science Foundation SBIR program.     

SBIR first decade-results,benefits, problems from a Michigan perspective

This paper reports on the economic contributions and impact of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program in Michigan during the first decade. The Michigan SBIR experience is examined to learn how researchers and small businesses use the SBIR Program, whether to start or strengthen businesses, how they view SBIR after a decade, and how the program has served Michigan businesses that have successfully carried out Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III SBIR projects. From the beginning of the SBIR Program, MERRA has coordinated annual SBIR conferences for Michigan companies. The MERRA staff has helped small businesses prepare suitable R&D projects and write effective SBIR proposals. Numerous SBIR awards have resulted from MERRA supportive efforts, and the MERRA small business outreach activity has kept MERRA in touch with successful firms to assist them in getting the best results from their SBIR projects and to assess progress. For this study, in-depth evaluations were made of various Michigan firms that won SBIR awards, including both mature small businesses and start-up companies to learn in what ways their SBIR experiences are parallel and in what ways they diverge. The study covers those that have used SBIR funds to diversify and add new areas of business to existing core areas. Other companies examined were created by researchers associated with universities, industry, or research organizations who utilized SBIR awards to assist in starting new businesses. Also considered were Michigan companies at different levels of development that have employed SBIR awards as seed money to perfect innovative new products for marketing.     

Commercialization activities in the SBIR program: Changes over time (part 2)

In order to explore how the extent of commercialization changes over time, longitudinal surveys were conducted by telephoning several sets of awardees in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. A model was formulated that predicts how the distribution of SBIR projects among five commercialisation levels changes from one year to the next. It was found that the distribution in any given year is dependent on the distribution in the previous year only. Projections show that as many as 30% of SBIR projects may eventually achieve commercialization.     

Universities and the success of entrepreneurial ventures: evidence from the small business innovation research program

There has been little direct, systematic empirical analysis of the role that universities play in enhancing the success of entrepreneurial ventures. We attempt to fill this gap by analyzing data from the US SBIR program, a ??set-aside?? program that requires key federal agencies (e.g., Department of Defense) to allocate 2.5% of their research budget to small firms that attempt to commercialize new technologies. Based on estimation of Tobit and negative binomial regressions of the determinants of commercial success, we find that start-ups with closer ties to universities achieve higher levels of performance.     

How does initial public financing influence private incentives for follow-on investment in early-stage technologies?

One common rationale supporting public financing programs for small firms is that initial public investment creates incentives for follow-on private investment. However, there does not appear to be a unified statement in the literature describing how initial public investment creates incentives for follow-on private investment. Focusing on external private investors, we use a two-stage net present value model to identify four effects from initial public investment on the private decision for follow-on investment. Our empirical analysis uses a sample of non-venture backed firms entering the SBIR program to examine how reduced risk, the number of SBIR awards, and size of initial public investment influence the likelihood of follow-on venture capital investment. We find the probability of follow-on venture capital investment is more likely when firms reach Phase II of the program, is less likely as firms win multiple Phase I and Phase II awards, and is more likely as the size of initial public investment in Phase I increases.

Why university inventions rarely produce income? Bottlenecks in university technology transfer

As intended, universities have gained ownership to an increased number of inventions from their labs after the enactment of Bayh-Dole act in 1980. But, how well are the universities taking advantage of the provisions of this Act? One aspect of this question is addressed empirically in this study. An analysis of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) periodic Licensing Activity Surveys of 1995–2004 indicated that the annual income generated by licensing university inventions was 1.7% of total research expenditure in 1995 and 2.9% in 2004. Some consider this and the rate of commercialization of university inventions to be too low. A premise of this study is that the slow rate of commercialization of university inventions may be due to the lack of adequate trained staff and inventions processing capacity in University Offices of Technology Transfer (UOTT). This paper describes an empirical study of the non-legal, technical, and legal invention processing capacity of US UOTT and its implications. A survey questionnaire was sent to 99 randomly selected US research universities. Seventy-five percent of the respondents mentioned shortage of staff for non-legal and legal processing of inventions. More than a third of the respondents claimed that, in 2006, they failed to process more than 26% of the inventions due to insufficient processing capacity in the UOTT. The study includes multiple regression models to estimate the effect of staffing on performance variables (i.e., Provisional Applications Filed, Patent [non-provisional] Applications and Licenses Executed) and “Inventions Not Processed” by the UOTTs due to staff/budget shortages. It is argued that, when short of staff and budget, UOTTs will be reduced to devoting their resources to ensuring patent applications are filed and patents are issued at the expense of marketing of inventions. Further, high-tech inventions are difficult to market because, often, there are no ready markets for them, especially if the inventor had no pre-invention contacts with a potential licensee. High-tech inventions originating from university labs may need market space/niche identification, new market creation, and the translation of the lab result into an “investor friendly” business plan; most UOTTs may be significantly short on these skills. Recommendations of this study are: first, an in-depth study of universities that are prolific in licensing inventions (40 or more licenses a year) is necessary to understand the reasons for their success in the context of UOTTs capacity to process inventions. Further, all federal agencies sponsoring university research must earmark a small percentage of each grant exclusively for commercialization purposes at the university. The paper offers multiple options for the effective use of these funds. The paper also offers several avenues for future research.     

Beyond innovation: the Small Business Innovation Research program as entrepreneurship policy

Entrepreneurship or new firm formation plays an increasingly important role in knowledge-based economic development. Public policy to encourage new firm formation has not focused on high quality, high potential firms, and the search for entrepreneurship policy with high economic impact is still needed. This research evaluates the efficacy of the US Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program from the perspective of promoting high technology entrepreneurship. In particular, we examine whether the local presence of SBIR awards is associated with increased new firm formation rates in the high technology sector. Although the primary objective of SBIR is to facilitate technological commercialization in small businesses, our policy analysis based on spatial multivariate methods suggests that this program may also serve as an effective entrepreneurship policy.     

Maximizing R&D investments in the Department of Energy's Environmental cleanup program

The investment made in research and development (R&D) by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) program must result in products that will significantly benefit the Department's cleanup efforts. A customer-oriented decision-making process for managing technology development is needed to appropriately link technology development activities with cleanup operations. This paper presents a process for R&D management, which we have named the Technology Investment Decision Model.The model identifies six R&D stages leading to technology implementation. The model incorporates decision points (or “gates”) within the R&D process where projects are selected for funding. The purpose of this “stage-gate” process is to ensure early evaluation of projects against technical and nontechnical criteria in order to ensure that end products will not only provide superior performance, but also meet the acceptance requirements of the intended customers. The model addresses the technology transfer and commercialization factors that must be considered to get technological innovations into the marketplace. The model is now being implemented within the EM technology development program and is providing a common framework to align the Department's environmental R&D activities with its cleanup goals.     

Redeploying Bayh-Dole: beyond Merely doing good to optimizing the potential in results of taxpayer-funded research

Opinions about the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and its implementation by US universities can depend on whether one views the Act as a series of tactics that are ends in themselves or as a policy declaration designed to protect the public against nonuse of taxpayer-funded discoveries and encourage their commercialization, utilization, and public availability. Those views appear to influence how universities and their leaders measure performance and define success, identify and allocate resources, approach transfer strategies, and negotiate terms and apportion risks relative to those terms. Those who view the Act as tactical tend to obscure the broader policy objectives which can result in substantial amounts of university research that is “never commercialized” (President’s Council of Advisors 2003), “restrained” (Schacht 2010b), and “left unused and unapplied” (Seipman in Univ Dayt Law Rev 30:209–243, 2004). Society then is deprived of the new products, services, approaches and experiences that can stimulate economic growth and advance human welfare. These and other consequences demand evaluations and assessments of university practices and behaviors and the extent to which they narrowly serve the Act’s tactics or more broadly serve its purposes of pursuing and maximizing the potential usefulness of the results of taxpayer-funded research. Too frequently, there seems to be a disconnect between federal policy and practices adopted or tolerated by universities and their leaders to implement that policy.     

Bridging the gap: online materials to equip graduate entrants to a law degree with essential subject knowledge and skills

Graduate entrants to law degrees can be disadvantaged by being exempted from Level 4 modules. Many lack the law-specific knowledge and skills that they would have gained from their first-year studies, making it more difficult for them to achieve mastery of higher-level modules. This poses risks to their retention and progression. The Open University Law School sought to bridge this gap by providing optional online “catch-up” materials, including 12 sessions of knowledge-based learning. Each session was followed by a brief Moodle poll so that we could ascertain that session’s fitness for purpose, and which students had studied it. The sessions were highly rated by respondents, and most had been studied in the target time of around 15 minutes. Studying the sessions was statistically associated with academic success. This finding does not prove that the sessions contribute towards student's attaining higher grades, but it is encouraging. Only a small percentage of students studied any sessions, and most of those did not study all of them. Since the sessions met their intended purpose for those who studied them, the Law School has now decided on a range of initiatives designed to increase the number of LLB students who study most of them.     

Evaluating prediction of technology transfer success: An interim evaluation of the dutch sensor technology program

Technology Foundation STW, a grant organization in the Netherlands, selects research proposals from universities on the basis of their scientific quality and their utilization potential. The proposals are in the field of applied science. STW also assists the research groups in the four years after the grant by bringing together the researchers and the potential users in half-day meeti gs twice a year at the university concerned. STW seeks methods to relate the differences in the research outcomes (“evaluation after”) to the differences in assessment rankings (“evaluation before”). This study will focus on the evaluation of a sensor technology program managed by STW as a subset of the larger set of all research projects funded by STW. We go back to the most basic and simple definition of utilization of outcome, namely whether the research results were or were not used by parties outside the university. This simple basis gives surprisingly positive results. First, it does indeed seem that for STW as a whole, the assessment beforehand is a predictor of the chance that the results will be used later. But this does not seem to be true as far as the subset of sensor technology projects is concerned. These findings can help us obtain more insight into what our selection process does and into what determines the success rate in terms of utilization six years after the research has ended.     

DELINQUENCY,IDENTITY, AND WOMEN'S INVOLVEMENT IN RELATIONSHIP VIOLENCE*

This study focuses on factors associated with women's self-reports of relationship violence “perpetration.” We analyzed data derived from personal interviews with 942 respondents who were originally contacted when they were adolescents and then 10 years later as young adults (N=721). Level of delinquency in adolescence was a signicant predictor of adult reports of involvement in relationship violence, for both male and female respondents. In addition, women's scores on the Conflict Tactics scale were related to adolescent and adult identities-higher scores were found among women who reported that they had been viewed as troublemakers as adolescents and who endorsed statements indexing an angry self-concept in adulthood. Although male perpetration represents a much more serious social and public health problem, these data do suggest that there may be a social learning basis for female as well as male expressions of violence.     

The university is the classroom: teaching and learning technology commercialization at a technological university

In 2013, the University of Strathclyde became the first Scottish university to receive the prestigious THES UK Entrepreneurial University of the Year award. In this article, I describe how successful technology commercialization education in this leading UK-based technological university is deeply dependent on the state of the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Two case studies illustrate the relatively minor “supporting” role that conventional teaching plays in the practice of technology commercialization, and the major role that a comprehensive university entrepreneurial ecosystem can play. Lessons drawn from teaching and learning technology commercialization at the University of Strathclyde are discussed. These include “teaching by stealth” through the ecosystem, basing students’ class assignments on their own technology, and the use of local role models in class. I conclude by summarizing today’s challenges and opportunities facing Strathclyde’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.     

Diversion in the Canadian Juvenile Justice System: A Tale of Two Cities

Abstract The present study attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of diversion in the juvenile justice system by comparing two different communities. One community has a formalized, well-established diversion program whereas the other community utilizes the Family Court to a much greater extent. Preliminary data suggests no difference in recidivism for a matched sample of young offenders. The implications of the study are discussed in terms of future research on diversion and the need for appropriate comparison groups. In the past two decades, diversion programs have been one of the major innovations within the juvenile justice system. These programs have attempted to divert juveniles from the formal process involving court hearings by creating alternative interventions at the policy and community level. The basic premises underlying these programs is that the formal court system may do more harm than good by labeling youngsters as “delinquent” and rendering them more vulnerable by involvement in an adversary process (Reference numbers 4, 12, 14). Diversion programs that provide youngsters with an opportunity to make restitution or perform community services are compensation for their misbehavior are seen as more immediate and meaningful consequences than awaiting a formal adversarial court hearing (5, 13). However, diversion programs have not met with universal acceptance. Critics have pointed out that programs, in fact, “widen the justice net” by processing children who never would have gone to court anyway (3, 7). As well, concerns have been raised as to the protection of clients' legal rights in the diversion program and the dangers of “double jeopardy” in the event that failure in a program could lead to an even more severe disposition by the court (8, 9). The debate over the effectiveness of diversion programs has been fueled by the lack of research. Although there are many studies that suggest the success of this approach (1, 6, 10), the research has suffered in its credibility due to the absence of appropriate control groups. The present study attempted to fill this significant void in previous evaluations of diversion, by comparing two communities in southwestern Ontario with different approaches to juvenile justice. The cities of Windsor and London are approximately 200 km apart, with comparative populations (200,000 vs 250,000). Windsor has well established diversion programs with substantial support of community agencies, the police force and Crown Attorney's office. This program is described in detail elsewhere (2, 11) so will not be outlined here. London has no such program and consequently has an obviously greater number of youngsters handled through the formalized juvenile court. The authors hoped to capitalize on this “naturally occurring difference” in approach between the two cities by examining the rate of recidivism of young offenders as well as determine their attitudes (and that of their parents) toward the interventions they received. The hypotheses in the pilot studies outlined were that the diversion program youth in Windsor would have a more positive attitude about their intervention and would be less likely to recidivate than a matched sample of youth in London, based on the theoretical underpinning of diversion as well as the results of previous outcome studies.     

Never a final design: interviewing Norwegian alcohol smugglers

This paper presents a typology of respondents that have been encountered in interview-based research on the illegal alcohol market in Norway. Six distinct types (“the social talker”, “the expert witness”, “the flasher”, “the manipulator” and “the paranoid”) are distinguished and their relative value discussed from a scientific perspective. Students of organized crime must learn how to handle these characters both socially and analytically, and how to avoid certain pitfalls. Challenges a researcher may meet while studying organized crime will also be discussed, like “going nervous,” “going naïve”, “going native” and “going nonchalant”. Traditional Scandinavian literature on research methods has not been very helpful in this sense.     

INTERPREIING OFFICIAL RECORDS AS INDICATORS OF RECIDIVISM IN EVALUATING DELINQUENCY PREVENTION PROGRAMS

Evaluations of crime reduction and prevention programs often use information from official law enforcement or judicial records as ostensibly “objective” indicators of criminal or delinquent activity. However. we of data from official police and court records in assessing the effectiveness of a delinquency prevention program in King County. Washington, yielded divergent conclusions regarding program “success,” depending upon choices in interpretation of records used and the data presentation format adopted. these choices also determined which socio demographic and service-related variables appeared to be related to delinquency. The article calls into question the reliability and validity of official record data as indicators of recidivism, calls for rethinking the selection and use of indicators of program effect in evaluation studies, and calls for further research to explore the possible existence of consistent relationships among available delinquency measures.     

Cost-sharing — A necessary component for successful technology transfer

The general objective of this paper is to propose the establishment of a federal cost-sharing policy for reducing risk in transferring technology from the R&D stage to commercialization. Minimization of this risk barrier is expected to encourage diverse groups to participate in technology transfer. Section II focuses on specific barriers that impede technology transfer efforts and it presents policy options to minimize identified barriers. Section III introduces objectives of cost-sharing experiments from which cost-sharing policies can be formulated. In addition, we also identify specific cost-sharing participation criteria and success variables for the policy.     

Navigating the role of the principal investigator: a comparison of four cases

Principal investigators are the lead actors on projects at the forefront of nascent technologies, yet few studies have explored the personal actions and experiences of PIs as they navigate their roles. I investigated principal investigators and their approach to new boundary spanning and entrepreneurial roles. Following a multiple case study methodology with a combination of interviews and observation, four PIs in nanotechnology related fields are explored in three dimensions: career and institutional alignment, boundary spanning activities and the tensions created in the still largely uncharted waters of nanotechnology commercialization. I found that these PIs actively sought organizational alignment that allowed them “to make things happen” while keeping harmony between the university and enterprise. The PIs demonstrated boundary-spanning activities, in particular a propensity for welcoming strangers into their labs in the hopes of finding new knowledge and opportunities, and practicing “good grantsmanship” to convert these new relations into collaboration. I found that the PIs managed tensions related to academic progression and lack of institutional support. Through this study, I offer researchers an opportunity to hear the voice of PIs on these topics and seek to contribute to our understanding of PIs as critical actors in the pursuit of science.