Innovation clusters building federal support

PBN Staff

06/04/2011

I interviewed SBA Administrator Karen Mills and, on her recommendation, subsequently spoke with Ginger Lew from the National Economic Council on the topic of regional innovation clusters — past, present and future.
I’ve described Mills’ role in cluster development frequently for Providence Business News and got a chance to ask her about her sense of progress and process. When I inquired about the unprecedented cross-agency alignment in relation to her co-authored Brookings report, she credited Ginger Lew for her work in making that happen.
Ginger Lew is senior adviser to the White House National Economic Council and the SBA administrator. She provides economic-policy advice on a broad range of matters that impact small businesses. In addition, she co-chairs the White House Interagency Group on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
What follows is a comingled distillation of both perspectives:
Gurau: (to Mills) Since authoring the Brookings report on the federal government’s role in cluster development in 2008, what’s been your experience of the process and progress?
Mills: When I came onboard in the agency, I had written the paper for Brookings and had some hope of beginning to bring that perspective to the work we were doing. I was very, very pleased by the energy and attention throughout the White House, both the National Economic Council and the domestic policy council, and in other agencies in joining together in this cluster effort.
We feel quite good about the progress that we’ve made and we have implemented a program for the SBA which does rely on some of the foundational work that we did for that Brookings paper. In addition, we’ve accomplished things that provide us more information about clusters – a cluster registry – which we referred to in the paper. And we’ve put together the Taskforce for Regional Innovation Clusters (TARIC) – an initiative to drive interagency process around clusters and one for which I credit Ginger Lew. Gurau: (to Lew): Can you describe your experience in leading the TARIC initiative?
Lew: The president has vowed to make government more responsive and efficient. When dealing with smaller government, each agency has fewer resources. Agencies that tie their work to one another see greater impact making the sum greater than the whole.
The challenge I faced was how to [put] a policy into practice, which really requires breaking down silos in agencies and programs – not easy. Getting a “coalition of the willing” to move forward on our focus on innovation development as a key to stronger regional economies was one key step. First we brought on Economic Development Administration (EDA, part of Department of Commerce), then some science agencies (Department of Energy, National Science Foundation), and SBA because small businesses are key to cluster development.
Our first multiagency initiative was the Energy Efficiency Regional Innovation Cluster (EERIC) program, our largest initiative in 2010 was led by Department of Energy with Department of Commerce, SBA, Department of Labor and Department of Energy. Following EERIC, we launched several other initiatives including the i6 Challenge from EDA, the USDA’s Great Regions, the Department of Energy’s Innovation Ecosystem initiative and SBA’s Regional Clusters program.
Each time we’ve developed a clusters initiative, we’ve learned, iterated and improved our process. Our most recent initiatives include EDA’s $12 million i6 Green and its $33 million Jobs and Innovation Acceleration Challenge with 16 agencies’ participation, of which three are funding and 13 supporting.
Gurau: What are some of the challenges that lie ahead in the realm of clusters? Mills: What we need now is to make sure that we have a sustainable structure for implementing and funding cluster activity. What we had found is that as these successes have come up in congressional communities, a constituency of members of Congress and others have begun to ask for and look for the benefits of cluster-related economic development. So we know it’s catching on but until now, funding has been done in traditional programs, categories or programs that have historical activity. And we need to find ways – and there aren’t many – to do interagency funding. So, we need to find mechanisms to support clusters and cluster activities that allow for some of its greatest benefits.
Clusters give a very good bang for the taxpayer buck. A small amount of money galvanizing a bottoms-up activity in clusters tends to lead to very vibrant, regional economic-development activity.
Gurau: What are some of the challenges and opportunities you see in your work in aligning agencies for cluster development?
Lew: We will continue to learn what works and improve the programs and collaboration among agencies. The more we can institutionalize this new behavior pattern, the less silo’d our activities and the greater the efficiency and effectiveness of government in supporting regional, innovation-based economic development.
This initiative has strong bipartisan support. Congress passed the America Competes Act in January 2011 during a time of tremendous political contention. COMPETES prioritizes regional-innovation cluster development and enables any agency to hold competitions to spur innovation. •

Michael Gurau is president of Clear Innovation Partners, a Maine-based firm formed to catalyze and sustain innovation and entrepreneurship in rural and urban economies. He can be reached at mg@clearinnovationpartners.com.

PBN Branded Content