Universities and ancillary economic development (versus the anti-research agenda of the Trump Administration)

The other day I was caught by an article, "A Battery That Lasts 50% Longer Is Finally in Production"in the Wall Street Journal about a solid state battery company that has been spun off from research at the University of Maryland.  

Past writings lament that such spin offs seem to be rare in DC especially ("Naturally occurring innovation districts | Technology districts and the tech sector" [2014} and "Better leveraging higher education institutions in cities and counties: Greensboro; Spokane; Mesa; Phoenix; Montgomery County, Maryland; Washington, DC," [2016]), but also from the UM ("Revisiting past blog entries: College Park as a college town and economic development | PG County and Amazon" [2018]).  

I'm not sure about Virginia, which has the Center for Innovative Technology in Loudoun County, but also majorly benefits from military spending ("The East-West Divide | DC area regional economic development: anchors and where they are placed matter + airports | But military spending matters the most," [2021]). NIH in MontgomeryCounty has been successful with spin offs (The NIH Plan for Accelerating Technology Transfer and Commercialization of Federal Research in Support of High Growth Businesses), even as other agencies like NIST aren't quite so fecund.

In "How the closure of a Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan led to the development of a more robust and independent biotech sector" (2019), I made the point that there are some blockbuster universities doing spinoffs, but maybe we don't know the right set of characteristics to distribute this effect more widely.  

Then again, I haven't researched the topic deeply.  For example the IEEE Spectrum article, "The Birth of the University as Innovation Incubator," which is an excerpt from the book Every American an Innovator:  How Innovation Became a Way of Life).

Work by Saxenian (Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 ) compare the different ecosystems of Greater Boston to the Silicon Valley, calling the formal top-down, but affiliated with universities, and the latter ground up.

-- "The Rise of Academic Incubators," Gensler
-- "How do incubators and accelerators support start-ups?,"  Universities UK
-- University Innovation Incubator Network

In the New York Times article "Red-State Universities Will Get Hit by Trump’s Cuts, Too," Richard Florida makes these points:

If the United States wants to compete with other countries for manufacturing jobs, our best strategy is to leverage our exceptional university research capabilities to rebuild our manufacturing base.

Universities have long played pivotal roles in building world-class high-tech economies: Stanford University helped make Silicon Valley what it is today by fostering technological excellence in electrical engineering, establishing the Stanford Research Park and educating the founders of startups like Hewlett-Packard. Individuals from universities like M.I.T. and Harvard played central roles in transforming Boston from a center of textile and boot and shoe manufacturing to a health-sciences hub by starting the world’s first modern venture capital fund to commercialize academic research.

Carnegie Mellon University helped revitalize Pittsburgh through targeted investments in computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics, coupled with strategic initiatives to bolster local entrepreneurship. The University of Texas at Austin mobilized local business and political leaders to transform Austin into a leading high-tech region. In all of these cases, universities led efforts to reposition their regional economies toward high-tech sectors such as computers, software, biotechnology and robotics.

... Our solutions must address today’s reality, not yesterday’s economy. Addressing this gap by fusing academic innovation with industrial production is even more important today, as new technologies transform old industries. Cars, for example, are evolving from internal combustion engines toward hybrid and electric, along with self-driving technologies and connected computing.

... Today, the economic role of universities is more critical than ever. As globalization and corporate consolidation stripped older industrial cities of their homegrown corporate headquarters, universities were often left as the primary engines of innovation and economic growth. To capitalize on their rising importance as economic anchors, the Biden administration made substantial investments in place-based industrial policy — aimed at revitalizing struggling regions.

Instead, the Trump Administration is doing all it can to diminish universities especially their research function.  Florida makes the point that red state universities produce spinoffs too.  

E.g. In Missouri, many universities focus on agritech research, Texas on all likes, including the world's leader cancer research center, embedded in a center with more than 50+ related institutions.  And there is the Research Triangle in North Carolina.

Seemingly believing that pointy headed professors doing research are only in blue states, like Harvard, is a serious mis-interpretation of reality. 

Ironically it's as if the Trump Administration is using the book Rise of the Creative Class as a primer for what to oppose, rather than a guide to community improvement and opportunities for social and capital investment.

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Interestingly, I saw a piece featuring the Secretary of the Department of Enegy, stating the national labs (like Fermi and Livermore) faced no threats from the Administration.  What makes them different from NIH, the National Science Foundation or university-based research.  Although federal labs, both the independent ones, and those that are part of federal agencies, have seen layoffs and cutbacks too.

-- "U.S. Scientists Warn That Trump’s Cuts Will Set Off a Brain Drain As the United States cuts budgets and restricts immigration, Chin," New York Times