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Announcements for Friday, July 13, 2012

News

  • CVC microloan program boosts small business startups

    A good small business idea with strong planning behind it isn't always a shoe-in for a traditional conventional loan. Five years ago, the Community Vitality Center (CVC), a center of ISU's Department of Economics, led the development of a statewide program called Iowa MicroLoan as a way to kick-start some entrepreneurial small business ideas that might otherwise not have a chance.

    "We looked beyond the normal standards constrained by tighter underwriting regulations resulting from the global credit crisis, to see that the person and the quality of their business idea had a workable business and cashflow plan," says Mark Edelman, CVC director.


    Iowa Microloan provides loans of $5000-$50,000 at 8 1/4 % APR, and offers ongoing technical assistance in setting up accounting software for the client. Fifty loans have been approved since early 2009, and clients are balanced in terms of gender, rural-urban location, and start-up versus an existing small business. Half are below HUD low income standards, and minorities and persons with disabilities are represented.

    Read a success story (page 4) about a MicroLoan recipient in the most recent edition ISU Extension's newsletter Community Matters at: www.extension.iastate.edu/communities/sites/www.extension.iastate.edu/files/communities/vol6issue1.pdf.

  • Weekly Media Connections for the Department of Economics

    Chad Hart spoke with Biz Asia America (CCTV in Chicago), regarding the heat wave and the potential impact on the global food supply.

Graduate Student Announcements

Conferences and Calls for Papers

  • Call for papers/proposals technology standards

    The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth is issuing a call for original research papers and proposals to be presented at a Research Roundtable Conference on Technology Standards and Innovation. The conference will be held at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, IL on Thursday, February 7, 2013 and Friday February 8, 2013.

    The theme of the conference is on market-based approaches to standard setting. The conference will explore the economic benefits and costs of intellectual property (IP) protections in the context of standards. The conference will focus on the positive economics of incentives for invention and incentives for innovation and commercialization rather than the more standard normative economics calling for regulation of technology transfer contracts. The conference will focus on generating new and original scholarship in the following areas.

    • Benefits and costs of technology standards in a market equilibrium setting
    • Market coordination of technology adoption by inventors, innovators, investors, consumers
    • Coordination by market participants through Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs)
    • Implications of technology standards for invention incentives
    • Implications of technology standards for innovation (commercialization of technology)
    • Implications of technology standards for investment in application and development of technology
    • Technology standards and antitrust policy
    • Technology standards, licensing, and patents

    Proposals and papers for the conference should be submitted to Susie Caruso at the following email address: editjems@kellogg.northwestern.edu.

    Conference Papers Submission Deadline: Proposals for the conference and edited volume should be submitted to Susie Caruso at the following email address: editjems@kellogg.northwestern.edu by August 10, 2012. Notification Deadline:  Authors will be notified of decisions by September 10.

    The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth at Northwestern University School of Law was established in 2006 to research how government regulation and interpretation of laws and regulations by the courts affect business and economic growth.  Information on the Searle Center’s activities may be found at: www.law.northwestern.edu/searlecenter. 

Funding Opportunities

  • USDA NIFA Higher Education Multicultural Scholars Program (MSP)
  • RFP for NSF PFI

    The NSF Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program is an umbrella for two complementary subprograms: Building Innovation Capacity (BIC), which involves an earlier stage that focuses on building innovation capacity, and Accelerating Innovation Research (AIR), which involves a later stage that focuses on the acceleration of innovative research. The former emphasizes the transformation of knowledge to market-accepted innovations created by the research and education enterprise, while the latter emphasizes the translation of research to commercialization by NSF-funded research alliances. A research alliance is defined as a research partnership formed for mutual benefit, and funded by NSF, between/amongst universities and other entities. In the final analysis, both programs, while focusing on different stages are concerned with the movement of academic research into the marketplace.

    This program solicitation, Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity (PFI: BIC) starts with an existing sound scientific and/or engineering-based research discovery that can be translated to market-valued solutions through a partnership between academe and small technology-based businesses. The funds will provide support to an academic institution to partner with at least two small technology-based businesses that are not in direct competition with each other to carry out early translational-research activities The primary aims of the activities of this partnership are three-fold: (1) to build the innovation capacity of the individual participants from academe and from business; (2) to increase the viability of the small business concerns; and (3) to develop the next-generation workforce by providing opportunities for students at different levels to effectively learn from, participate in, and be profoundly changed by exposure to the process of building innovation capacity that occurs in BIC projects. The active collaboration between academe and business could result in solutions with potential for an impact on more than one market.

    WEBINAR: A webinar will be held within 6 weeks of the release date of this solicitation to answer any questions about the solicitation. Details will be posted on the Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP) website. (www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=iip) as they become available.

    Lead academic institutions are limited to participation in only one BIC proposal. There is no organizational limit for AIR proposals. Each PI may submit only one proposal. Letter of intent required September 26, 2012, full proposal December 12, 2012.

    For more information: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504708

    Your pre-proposal should contain the following information:

    • Summary of the proposal (no more than 2 pages) highlighting the intellectual merits of the proposal
    • Tentative list of participants (internal and external collaborators)
    • Explain why your proposal would be competitive (1 page) -- explain the strengths and uniqueness of your proposal, given the review criteria.
    • Explain how your proposal would address NSF’s Broader Impacts requirement (half page).

    Preproposals must be submitted to Dorothy Pimlott (dpimlott@iastate.edu) by close of business, Tuesday, September 4 .

Job Opportunities