BILL REQ. #:  S-1989.1 

Read first time 02/23/09.   Referred to Committee on Economic Development, Trade & Innovation.

     AN ACT Relating to the duties of the Washington economic development commission; amending RCW 43.330.280; and amending 2007 c 232 s 6 (uncodified).

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   2007 c 232 s 6 (uncodified) is amended to read as follows:
     (1) ((The commission must develop and update a state comprehensive plan for economic development and an initial inventory of economic development programs, as required under section 4 of this act, by June 30, 2008.
     (2))) Using the information from ((the)) its initial inventory of economic development programs, public input, and such other information as it deems appropriate, the commission shall, ((by September 1, 2008)) in conjunction with the governor's office and the appropriate policy committees of the legislature, provide a report with findings, analysis, and recommendations to the governor and the legislature, by December 1, 2009, on the appropriate state role in economic development and the appropriate administrative and regional structures for the provision of economic development services. The report shall address how best to organize the state system to ensure that the state's economic development efforts:
     (a) Are organized around a clear central mission and aligned with the state's comprehensive plan for economic development;
     (b) Are capable of providing focused and flexible responses to changing economic conditions;
     (c) Generate greater local capacity to respond to local opportunities and needs;
     (d) Face no administrative barriers to efficiency and effectiveness;
     (e) Maximize results through partnerships and the use of intermediaries; and
     (f) Provide increased accountability to the public, the executive branch, and the legislature.
     (((3))) (2) The report should address the potential value of creating or consolidating specific programs if doing so would be consistent with an agency's core mission, and the potential value of removing specific programs from an agency if the programs are not central to the agency's core mission.

Sec. 2   RCW 43.330.280 and 2007 c 227 s 2 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) The Washington state economic development commission shall, with the advice of an innovation partnership advisory group selected by the commission, have oversight responsibility for the implementation of the state's efforts to further innovation partnerships throughout the state. The commission shall:
     (a) Provide information and advice to the department of community, trade, and economic development to assist in the implementation of the innovation partnership zone program, including criteria to be used in the selection of grant applicants for funding;
     (b) Document clusters of companies throughout the state that have comparative competitive advantage or the potential for comparative competitive advantage, using the process and criteria for identifying strategic clusters developed by the working group specified in subsection (2) of this section;
     (c) Conduct an annual innovation opportunity analysis to identify (i) the strongest current intellectual assets and research teams in the state focused on emerging technologies and their commercialization, and (ii) faculty and researchers that could increase their focus on commercialization of technology if provided the appropriate technical assistance and resources;
     (d) Based on its findings and analysis, and in conjunction with the higher education coordinating board and research institutions:
     (i) Develop a plan to be updated annually to build on existing, and develop new, intellectual assets and innovation research teams in the state in research areas where there is a high potential to commercialize technologies. The commission shall present the plan to the governor and legislature by December ((31, 2007)) 31st of each year. The higher education coordinating board shall be responsible for implementing the plan in conjunction with the publicly funded research institutions in the state. The plan shall address the following elements and such other elements as the commission deems important:
     (A) Specific mechanisms to support, enhance, or develop innovation research teams and strengthen their research and commercialization capacity in areas identified as useful to strategic clusters and innovative firms in the state;
     (B) Identification of the funding necessary for laboratory infrastructure needed to house innovation research teams;
     (C) Specification of the most promising research areas meriting enhanced resources and recruitment of significant entrepreneurial researchers to join or lead innovation research teams;
     (D) The most productive approaches to take in the recruitment, in the identified promising research areas, of a minimum of ((ten)) one significant entrepreneurial researcher((s over the next ten years)) per year to join or lead innovation research teams;
     (E) Steps to take in solicitation of private sector support for the recruitment of entrepreneurial researchers and the commercialization activity of innovation research teams; and
     (F) Mechanisms for ensuring the location of innovation research teams in innovation partnership zones;
     (ii) Provide direction for the development of comprehensive entrepreneurial assistance programs at research institutions. The programs may involve multidisciplinary students, faculty, entrepreneurial researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors in building business models and evolving business plans around innovative ideas. The programs may provide technical assistance and the support of an entrepreneur-in-residence to innovation research teams and offer entrepreneurial training to faculty, researchers, undergraduates, and graduate students. Curriculum leading to a certificate in entrepreneurship may also be offered;
     (e) Develop performance measures to be used in evaluating the performance of innovation research teams, the implementation of the plan and programs under (d)(i) and (ii) of this subsection, and the performance of innovation partnership zone grant recipients, including but not limited to private investment measures, business initiation measures, job creation measures, and measures of innovation such as licensing of ideas in research institutions, patents, or other recognized measures of innovation. The performance measures developed shall be consistent with the economic development commission's comprehensive plan for economic development and its standards and metrics for program evaluation. The commission shall report to the legislature and the governor by ((December 31, 2008)) September 30, 2009, on the measures developed; and
     (f) Using the performance measures developed, perform a biennial assessment and report, the first of which shall be due December 31, 2012, on:
     (i) Commercialization of technologies developed at state universities, found at other research institutions in the state, and facilitated with public assistance at existing companies;
     (ii) Outcomes of the funding of innovation research teams and recruitment of significant entrepreneurial researchers;
     (iii) Comparison with other states of Washington's outcomes from the innovation research teams and efforts to recruit significant entrepreneurial researchers; and
     (iv) Outcomes of the grants for innovation partnership zones.
The report shall include recommendations for modifications of chapter 227, Laws of 2007 and of state commercialization efforts that would enhance the state's economic competitiveness.
     (2) The economic development commission and the workforce training and education coordinating board shall jointly convene a working group to:
     (a) Specify the process and criteria for identification of substate geographic concentrations of firms or employment in an industry and the industry's customers, suppliers, supporting businesses, and institutions, which process will include the use of labor market information from the employment security department and local labor markets; and
     (b) Establish criteria for identifying strategic clusters which are important to economic prosperity in the state, considering cluster size, growth rate, and wage levels among other factors.