Louisiana frequently finds itself at or near the bottom of lists that measure things like educational attainment, mortality rates and poverty levels, writes Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel in her latest column.
“Yet another to add to the collection is a list that ranks states based on the amount of money each receives from the Small Business Innovation Research program—a federal program designed to spur innovation, and help emerging tech companies bring their ideas and products to market,” Riegel says. “Not surprisingly, Louisiana—as in so many other areas outside of football and good food—fares badly on this list, too.”
Louisiana received just $3.74 per capita in SBIR funding from 2011-2015, she writes, the second-lowest amount of all 50 states. Only Mississippi, at $1.87 per capita, received less.
By comparison, Massachusetts, the best-performing state, received more than $203 per capita, while California, which at more than $2.3 billion received the most money in total dollars, received nearly $62 per capita in SBIR funding.
The disparity—which seems both patently unfair and creates a downward spiraling dynamic—is troubling to many in the R&D community.
“States or communities that get a lot of federal money to enhance their R&D tend to do more R&D, which spawns more innovation, which helps generate a tech ecosystem, which, eventually, leads to more federal grants,” she writes. “By contrast, states that are largely left out of the process have a more difficult time attracting R&D dollars from the private sector, making it harder to grow a tech economy, which makes the area less likely to receive federal grants in the future.”
A local group is trying to reverse that snowball effect. The SBIR Consortium is a trade organization designed to educate the local business community about federal funding opportunities like SBIR grants and advocate for policy changes that could lead to more SBIR funding for Louisiana companies.
“The SBIR is a very successful program and companies that participate in it have a much higher success rate,” says Andy McCandless, who organized the consortium. “A lot of companies that receive SBIR funding grow up to be big companies. We need more of that funding to come to Louisiana.”
Read the full column. Send your comments to editor@businessreport.com.
