New York’s Nanotechnology Model
BUILDING THE INNOVATION ECONOMY
Summary of a Symposium
Charles W. Wessner, Rapporteur
Committee on Competing in the 21st Century:
Best Practice in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives
Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy
Policy and Global Affairs
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by: Contract/Grant No. DE-DT0000236, TO #28 (base award DE-AM01-04PI45013), between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy. This report was prepared by the National Academy of Sciences under award number SB134106Z0011, TO# 4 (68059), from the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This report was prepared by the National Academy of Sciences under award number 99-06-07543-02 from the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Economic Development Administration, or the U.S. Department of Commerce. Additional support was provided by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Hudson Valley Community College, the Center for Economic Growth, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Committee on Competing in the 21st Century:
Best Practice in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives*
Mary L. Good (NAE), Chair
Dean Emeritus, Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology
Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Economic Development
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Michael G. Borrus
Founding General Partner
X/Seed Capital Management
William C. Harris
President and CEO
Science Foundation Arizona
W. Clark McFadden II
Senior Counsel
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
David T. Morgenthaler
Founding Partner
Morgenthaler Ventures
Edward E. Penhoet (IOM)
Director
Alta Partners
Tyrone C. Taylor
President
Capitol Advisors on Technology, LLC
*As of August 2013.
For the National Research Council (NRC), this project was overseen by the Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy (STEP), a standing board of the NRC established by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine in 1991. The mandate of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy is to advise federal, state, and local governments and inform the public about economic and related public policies to promote the creation, diffusion, and application of new scientific and technical knowledge to enhance the productivity and competitiveness of the U.S. economy and foster economic prosperity for all Americans. The STEP Board and its committees marshal research and the expertise of scholars, industrial managers, investors, and former public officials in a wide range of policy areas that affect the speed and direction of scientific and technological change and their contributions to the growth of the U.S. and global economies. Results are communicated through reports, conferences, workshops, briefings, and electronic media subject to the procedures of the National Academies to ensure their authoritativeness, independence, and objectivity. The members of the STEP Board* and the NRC staff are listed below:
Paul L. Joskow, Chair
President
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Ernst R. Berndt
Louis E. Seley Professor in Applied Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jeff Bingaman
Former U.S. Senator, New Mexico
U.S. Senate
Ellen Dulberger
Managing Partner
Ellen Dulberger Enterprises, LLC
Alan M. Garber (IOM)
Provost
Harvard University
Ralph E. Gomory (NAS/NAE)
Research Professor
Stern School of Business
New York University
John L. Hennessy (NAS/NAE)
President
Stanford University
William H. Janeway
Managing Director and Senior Advisor
Warburg Pincus, LLC
Richard K. Lester
Japan Steel Industry Professor
Head, Nuclear Science and Engineering
Founding Director, Industrial Performance Center
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*As of August 2013.
David T. Morgenthaler
Founder
Morgenthaler Ventures
Luis M. Proenza
President
University of Akron
William J. Raduchel
Independent Investor and Director
Kathryn L. Shaw
Ernest C. Arbuckle Professor of Economics
Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
Laura D’Andrea Tyson
S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management
Haas School of Business
University of California-Berkeley
Harold R. Varian
Chief Economist
Google Inc.
Alan Wm. Wolff
Senior Counsel
McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP
STEP Staff
Stephen A. Merrill
Executive Director
Paul T. Beaton
Program Officer
McAlister T. Clabaugh
Program Officer
Aqila A. Coulthurst
Program Coordinator
Charles W. Wessner
Program Director
David S. Dawson
Senior Program Assistant (through June 2013)
David E. Dierksheide
Program Officer
Sujai J. Shivakumar
Senior Program Officer
Contents
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Drew Matonak, President, Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC)
The Honorable Paul Tonko, U.S. House of Representatives
Ajit Manocha, CEO, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
Panel I: Innovation and Growth: Regional, National, and International Dimensions
The Global Innovation Imperative
Charles Wessner, Director, Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, The National Academies
Challenges and Opportunities for the New York Innovation Economy
Darren Suarez, Director of Government Affairs, Business Council of New York
The Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D., President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Introduced by Mike Russo, Director of Government Affairs, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
Panel II: The New York Nanotechnology Cluster
Moderator: Rex Smith, Editor, Times Union
The New York Innovation Economy and the Nanotechnology Cluster: The Role of SUNY
Timothy Killeen, Vice Chancellor for Research, SUNY, and President, Research Foundation for SUNY
New York’s Nanotechnology Model: Building the Innovation Economy
Ken Adams, President and CEO, Empire State Development Corporation
Pioneering Innovation to Drive an Educational and Economic Renaissance in New York State
Panel III: Growing the Semiconductor Industry in New York: Challenges and Opportunities
Breaking New Ground: The New York Advantage
Mike Russo, Director of Government Affairs, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
Collaboration as a Way Forward for Semiconductor Technology: Albany Nanotech
Gary Patton, Vice President, Semiconductor Research and Development Center, IBM
Growing the Semiconductor Industry in New York: Challenges and Opportunities
Daniel Armbrust, President and CEO, SEMATECH
Panel IV: 21st Century Universities: Drivers of Regional Growth and Employment
Moderator: Luis Proenza, President, The University of Akron
Nancy L. Zimpher, Chancellor, The State University of New York
Building Innovation Infrastructure: The Role of EDA
Universities as Economic Anchors
Donald Siegel, Dean, School of Business, State University of New York at Albany
Technical Training for Innovation-Driven Employment
Drew Matonak, President, Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC)
Introduced by Bob Blackman, Chair, Center for Economic Growth
Panel V: Building Advanced Manufacturing Industries in New York
Advanced Manufacturing for New Energy Technologies
Minh Le, Director, Solar Energy Technologies, U.S. Department of Energy
University-Industry Partnerships for Next Generation Manufacturing
John Wen, Director, Center for Automation Technologies and Systems, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Lessons Learned to Date in the New “Tech Valley”
F. Michael Tucker, President & CEO, Center for Economic Growth
Manufacturing and Innovation: The GE Perspective
Stephan Biller, Chief Scientist for Manufacturing, General Electric
Panel VI: Nanotechnology and Biomedical Sciences
Moderator: David Rooney, Senior Vice President, Center for Economic Growth
Innovation in Cancer Research: The Nanotechnology Opportunity
Building the Brain-Computer Interface: Clinical and Experimental Needs
Anthony Ritaccio, Director, Epilepsy and Human Brain Mapping, Albany Medical Center
Jonathan S. Dordick, Vice President for Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Convergence in the Semiconductor, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Device Industries
Brian Toohey, President and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)
Closing Roundtable: New York’s Innovation Future
Johanna Duncan-Poitier, Senior Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges and the Education Pipeline, The State University of New York
Kathleen Kingscott, Senior Director for Strategic Partnerships, IBM
Michael Liehr, Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, The State University of New York at Albany
W. Clark McFadden, Senior Counsel, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; Committee Member, National Academies Committee on State and Regional Innovation Initiatives
Jonathan S. Dordick, Vice President for Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Mike Russo, Director of Government Affairs, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
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 sector 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.
PROJECT STATEMENT OF TASK
An ad hoc committee, under the auspices of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP), is conducting a study of selected state and regional programs to identify best practices with regard to their goals, structures, instruments, modes of operation, synergies across private and public programs, funding mechanisms and levels, and evaluation efforts. The committee is reviewing selected state and regional efforts to capitalize on federal and state investments in areas of critical national needs. This review includes both efforts to strengthen existing industries as well as specific new technology focus areas such as nanotechnology, stem cells, and energy in order to improve our understanding of program goals, challenges, and accomplishments.
As a part of this review, the committee is convening a series of public workshops and symposia involving responsible local, state, and federal officials
and other stakeholders. These meetings and symposia will enable an exchange of views, information, experience, and analysis to identify best practice in the range of programs and incentives adopted.1
Drawing from discussions at these symposia, fact-finding meetings, and commissioned analyses of existing state and regional programs and technology focus areas, the committee will subsequently produce a final report with findings and recommendations focused on lessons, issues, and opportunities for complementary U.S. policies created by these state and regional initiatives.2
THIS SUMMARY
The symposium reported in this volume convened state officials and staff, business leaders, and leading national figures in early-stage finance, technology, engineering, education, and state and federal policies to review challenges, plans, and opportunities for innovation-led growth in New York. These symposium participants assessed New York’s academic, industrial, and human resources, identified key policy issues, and engaged in a discussion of how the state might leverage regional development organizations, state initiatives, and national programs focused on manufacturing and innovation to support its economic development goals. The conference agenda, listing the speakers and their presentations, is found in Appendix A of this volume. Appendix B provides the biographies of these speakers. A full list of participants is found in Appendix C of this report.
This conference, as with any single meeting, was necessarily limited in its scope; it did not (and indeed could not) describe the full variety of industries present in the state. The focus on the emerging partnerships among academia, industry, and government in nanotechnology, however, illustrates the high level of commitment by New York’s political and industry leaders to grow the state’s innovation ecosystem.
1The Committee convened meetings to review state and regional programs in Arkansas, Hawaii, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Summaries of these meetings have been prepared. See for example, National Research Council, Building the Arkansas Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium, C. Wessner, Rapporteur, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012. See also National Research Council, Building Hawaii’s Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium, C. Wessner, Rapporteur, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012. The Committee has also convened meetings to review federal and state policies to encourage the development of innovation clusters. See National Research Council, Growing Innovation Clusters for American Prosperity: Summary of a Symposium, C. Wessner, Rapporteur, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2011.
2The committee has prepared a consensus report, based on this study. See National Research Council, Best Practices in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives: Competing in the 21st Century, C. Wessner, ed., Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2013.
New York’s Nanotechnology Model: Building the Innovation Economy Summary of a Symposium Statement of Task
The committee will cooperate with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and other members of the Nano Consortium, including the College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany-SUNY, to conduct a symposium to highlight the accomplishments and growth of the innovation ecosystem in New York, while also identifying needs, challenges, and opportunities. Participants will include state officials and staff, business leaders, and leading national figures in early-stage finance, technology, engineering, education, and state and federal policies. The event will review the development of the Albany nanotech cluster and its usefulness as a model for innovation-based growth, while also discussing the New York innovation ecosystem more broadly. The event will help identify areas where federal, state, university, and non-profit contributions could generate positive synergies and also draw attention to the scale and focus of foreign competitive programs and consider their implications for New York and the nation. An individually-authored summary of the symposium will be published.
This summary report includes an overview that highlights key issues raised at the meeting and a summary of the meeting’s presentations. This workshop summary has been prepared by the workshop rapporteur as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop. The planning committee’s role was limited to planning and convening the workshop. The statements made are those of the rapporteur or individual workshop participants and do not necessarily represent the views of all workshop participants, the planning committee, or the National Academies.
THE CONTEXT OF THIS PROJECT
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.3 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.4 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.5 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 and share 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. The overall goal is to improve the operation of state and regional programs and, collectively, enhance their impact.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On behalf of the National Academies, we express our appreciation and recognition for the insights, experiences, and perspectives made available by the
3For a review of growth of national programs and policies around the world to support research and accelerate innovation, and the resulting challenges facing the United States, see National Research Council, Rising the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policies for the Global Economy, C. Wessner and A. Wm. Wolff, eds., Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012.
4For example, a number of countries are investing significant funds in the development of research parks. For a review of selected national efforts, see National Research Council, Understanding Research, Science and Technology Parks: Global Best Practices—Report of a Symposium, C. Wessner, ed., Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009.
5For a scoreboard of state efforts, see Robert Atkinson and Scott Andes, The 2010 State New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the States, Kauffman Foundation and ITIF, November 2010.
participants of this meeting. Their support and interest were instrumental to the quality and high-level participation of the conference. Special thanks are also due to McAlister Clabaugh of the STEP staff, for his many contributions to the organization of the conference.
We are also indebted to Alan Anderson for preparing the draft introduction and summarizing the proceedings of the meeting, as we are to Sujai Shivakumar for his substantive contributions and editorial skills.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF REVIEWERS
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Academies’ Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for quality and objectivity. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report: Kathleen Kingscott, IBM Research; David Rooney, Center for Economic Growth; Hany Shawky, University at Albany, State University of New York; and Jan Youtie, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the content of the report, nor did they see the final draft before its release. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the rapporteur and the institution.
Mary L. Good |
Charles W. Wessner |