Government helping private sector
Categories: Teaming up-GOV. and Private sector
Tags: Manufacturing Extension Partnership program
{The Manufacturing Extension Partnership program is not very well known even among technology and innovation experts in the administration and on Capitol Hill. But MEP should be a more widely recognizable acronym, not only for what it does, but also for what those involved with it have learned over the past 20 years. Intriguingly, the program is a lesson in government discovering what small- and medium-sized businesses need and then delivering those services—actions most people rarely consider a government program capable of.}
{The MEP’s work on process efficiency improvements as well as growth, technology, and innovation strategies is a smart allocation of finite government resources tailored to draw in matching funds from the private sector. As confirmed by dozens of case studies (some described below), the MEP program is often the difference between life and death for small- and medium-sized companies beset with difficult challenges, struggling to survive.}
INNOVATION CLUSTERS
Manufacturing Innovation
Commerce Department Program Grows with the Times
SOURCE: AP/Mark Duncan
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership
program’s evolving strategies to spur competitiveness and innovation
among small- and medium-sized businesses adjusts to new challenges.
Innovation Clusters
In regions around the country, clusters of universities and high-tech companies partner with local and regional governments to boost tech-based economic growth and create good jobs. The two best examples are Silicon Valley, the hotbed of computer technology in northern California, and the metropolitan Boston area connected by Route 128, which is a nexus of biotechnology research and development. For a primer on innovation clusters, see our “Regional Centers of Innovation 101.”
The federal government provides large sums of funding for basic scientific research, and boasts a variety of different programs to help companies and state and local governments prepare executives and workers for employment at young, innovative companies seeking to commercialize this research. But the federal government lacks a comprehensive approach for innovation policy. What’s needed is today is a clear-eyed blueprint for developing more innovative clusters around the country that links together federal programs, academic institutions, companies, and local and regional policymakers. In this series, Science Progress will feature bold ideas from innovation experts across the nation for how the Obama administration can develop an effective innovation policy that creates jobs, enables economic mobility, enhances science, and grows the county’s competitiveness.
The Obama administration signaled in its fiscal year 2010 budget outline released in February 2009 that it would invest in new strategies to boost the commercialization of basic research and development, allocating $50 million in new funds to the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Program to boost the development of new regional innovation clusters. Tellingly, however, administration officials also decided to significantly increase funding for a 20-year-old program—the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program—which helps our nation’s small- and medium-sized businesses remain globally competitive by encouraging applied innovation through a variety of projects.
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership program is not very well known even among technology and innovation experts in the administration and on Capitol Hill. But MEP should be a more widely recognizable acronym, not only for what it does, but also for what those involved with it have learned over the past 20 years. Intriguingly, the program is a lesson in government discovering what small- and medium-sized businesses need and then delivering those services—actions most people rarely consider a government program capable of.
But first, what is MEP? The Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a program within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, which is housed in the Department of Commerce. MEP was created by the Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 “to enhance productivity and technological performance in United States manufacturing.”[1]
Over the past 20 years, MEP developed from a small pilot program with three centers into a sprawling system of 59 centers in 393 locations in every state and in Puerto Rico, employing over 1,600 specialists in business and manufacturing. MEP provides small- to medium-sized manufacturing companies with a wide array of fundamental services, helping them to become more efficient, resilient, and strong in an increasingly competitive global market. With $125 million allocated to the MEP in the proposed fiscal 2010 budget, up about $15 million from fiscal 2009 levels, the program is on a strong financial footing and is poised to expand and improve its services.
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