In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, two large infrastructure-related bills have been enacted. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law in November 2021, provides funding for a wide range of activities including roads, rail, transit, broadband, water and electrical infrastructure.

On September 28th, 2021, CREATE’s Faculty Director Dr. Maryann Feldman presented at the “Strengthening US Science & Technology Global Leadership for the 21st Century” at the inaugural meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The Council is comprised of forty advisors outside of the federal government that provide expertise and guidance to the President in policy matters regarding science, technology, and innovation. This particular session was focused on current issues regarding equitable economic development, specifically during the country’s post-pandemic recovery.

On September 28th, 2021, CREATE’s Faculty Director Dr. Maryann Feldman presented at the “Strengthening US Science & Technology Global Leadership for the 21st Century” at the inaugural meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The Council is comprised of forty advisors outside of the federal government that provide expertise and guidance to the President in policy matters regarding science, technology, and innovation. This particular session was focused on current issues regarding equitable economic development, specifically during the country’s post-pandemic recovery.

Mitchell County in Western North Carolina has been exploring ways to leverage and develop their natural and outdoor assets for economic development. During the Spring of 2020, NCGrowth partnered with Mitchell County to map the county’s outdoor recreation assets and outdoor industry businesses in order to identify potential avenues for outdoor recreation based economic development.

CREATE Faculty Director, Dr. Maryann Feldman, and Georgia Tech’s Dr. Paige Clayton explore how policy might vary over the life cycle of innovative ecosystems in this research paper, presented at APPAM’s 42nd Annual Fall research conference. This paper reviews the evidence on how ecosystems evolve over time as firms and institutions develop, with identification of a set of organizational logics that prevail for each stage of ecosystem development.

The idea that new ventures are simple mimetic reflections of the organizational practices of existing organizations contradicts the recognized importance of organizational diversity for innovation. There is an inherent contradiction in the literature between the persistence implied by the inheritance of practices from prior employment, and the experimentation prevalent in the organizational practices contributed by new organizations.

Since its founding in 1982, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has become the largest and most comprehensive public research and development funding program of small business research in the United States. An underlying tenet of the SBIR program, and the related Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, is that small and young firms are an important source of new ideas that provide the underlying basis for technological innovation, productivity increases, and subsequent economic growth. By involving qualified small businesses in the nation's research and development efforts, SBIR/STTR grants stimulate the development of innovative technologies and help federal agencies achieve their missions and objectives.

Description: In pursuit of building prosperous economies, policymakers are increasingly interested in entrepreneurial ecosystems. The concept positions entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial communities as central actors in building the benefits associated with geographic agglomerations. This report presents the concept of ecosystems as a new understanding of how entrepreneurial economies work and how they develop over time.

In search of additional sources of revenue, universities and colleges have cultivated individual donors to provide support to academic projects and initiatives. Major gifts (of at least $100,000) from private donors are typically lost in an aggregation of all types of philanthropy, rather than being considered as their own separate category. This chapter provides evidence of the contributions of high net worth individuals to university programs, with a focus on donors’ support of scientific research.

Community banks are the central financial institution in many places. They have the capacity to alleviate credit constraints of small firms. This may increase economic resilience, delaying or mitigating the effects of the Great Recession. We estimate how the county-level banking access and community bank market share affect both the timing and duration of the Great Recession.

Many of the most prosperous places in the U.S. are hotbeds of technology and also the home bases of companies which exercise monopoly power across much larger territories – nationally, or even globally. This paper makes four arguments about regional income disparities.

How do cities attract mobile firms? The answer, frequently, involves beer. Dr. Maryann Feldman has recently published an editorial describing how cities are increasingly selling themselves on quality of life metrics, talent, and trendy amenities that appeal to young professionals. Responding to Amazon’s HQ2 contest, cities across the country listed breweries among their city’s assets while wooing the technology giant. The article is based on a paper that three of her students wrote under her guidance, and the inspirations for which evolved out of a seminar Dr. Feldman taught on science and technology policy. The article, “Catching the whale: A comparison of place promotion strategies through the lens of Amazon HQ2”, was published in Geography Compass this summer by Scott Langford, Allison Lowe Reed, and Adams Nager. Using text analysis of city responses to the HQ2 contest, the paper argues that regions compete on much more than simply low costs of land and labor or business-friendly environment metrics, as traditional theory would assume. In the News and Observer, Dr. Feldman and her students explain how cities reliance on brews when advertising themselves is evidence of a shift in how cities aim to attract jobs and stay competitive.