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Week of September 10 - 16, 2007

The 2007 Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000

We always look forward to each year’s list of the Inc. 500 for its impressive entrepreneurs and great stories of innovation and creativity. The newly released 2007 list is no exception. This year’s list is topped by Solon, Ohio’s MemberHealth, one of the US’s largest managers of Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage. 2006 was a good year for MemberHealth as it grew by $1 billion in that year alone. Over three years, it has grown at a rate of more than 20,000 percent. In general, health care is booming, accounting for four of the top ten firms on the list. California (81), Texas (38), and Virginia (35) host the most Inc. 500 firms. For metro areas, Washington, DC (40) hosts the most companies, while Provo, Utah has the most Inc. 500 firms per million residents. This year’s issue also looks at how the Inc. 500 are operating in global markets. More than half of Inc. 500 firms are doing business overseas, and forty companies have at least one permanent office abroad. Not surprisingly, Canada, China, and India are the most popular locations for export sales. The best new on-line feature for 2007 is the new Inc. 5000 list which tallies up the 5,000 fastest growing companies.

Find the 2007 Inc. 500 list in the September 2007 issue of Inc. magazine and on-line at www.inc.com.   

Fortune Profiles the Latest in Entrepreneurship Education

The September 2007 issue of Fortune Small Business is something of a back-to-school edition as it profiles America’s best college entrepreneurship programs and professors, and offers a useful guide to the latest trends in college-level entrepreneurship education programs. FSB’s list of the best universities for entrepreneurship contains many of the regularly-recognized programs such as MIT, Stanford, and Babson College as well as a number of schools participating in the Kauffman Foundation’s Kauffman Campuses initiative – Howard University, Syracuse University, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Texas-El Paso, and Wake Forest University. It also includes an interesting list of the best schools for interdisciplinary learning, i.e. for students who want to double major in entrepreneurship and another field. Top schools in this latter category include DePaul University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and University of Texas-Austin. The special issue also includes interviews with nine entrepreneurs who discuss how formal entrepreneurship training helped them become better entrepreneurs.

To access the September 2007 Fortune Small Business special report, “America’s Best Colleges for Entrepreneurs,” visit http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/bestcolleges/2007/index.html.

Upgrading Canada’s Innovation System

Canada’s innovation system needs an upgrade and more money alone will not do the trick. That’s the primary message of a new report from Canada’s Institute for Research on Public Policy. The study contends that, despite years of new investments and new programs, Canada’s prosperity growth is lagging. It highlights three pressing challenges: 1) Canada does a poor job of commercializing new research; 2) Canada needs to develop more innovative knowledge-based industries that generate high value products and services (in other words, Canadian firms are not creating transformative products and technologies); and, 3) Canada lacks institutions that track innovation investments and build networks between industry, government, and academia. The report notes that this networking role is a critical component of Canada’s economic future. According to author Guy Stanley, Canada needs an institution or institutions that will invest in leading-edge research and help encourage new research partnerships. He points to Finland’s Tekes organization as a model that Canada might emulate.

Access the July/August 2007 Institute for Research on Public Policy paper, Upgrading Canada’s National Innovation System: More than Money Required, by Guy Stanley. 

R and D Earmarks Alive and Well

While many in Congress continue to criticize the process of earmarking (i.e. when legislators designate that funds be spent on a specific project), the process is alive and well. A new Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) study finds that the effect of last year’s moratorium on earmarks has been fairly limited. According to the study, earmarking of science projects has made a cautious return. This year’s budget process has not yet been completed, but, to date, the Senate has spent $624 million on “Congressionally-designated, performer-specific” R&D projects as opposed to spending in a general agency or department budget. The House has spent $529 million on earmarked projects. Overall, the earmarks are smaller and more transparent than in previous years. These totals amount to less than 1% of total domestic agency R&D appropriations and approximately 3% of total Department of Defense R&D spending.

Learn more about the August 2007 Association for the Advancement of Science study, Congress Making Cautious Return to R&D Earmarking, Says AAAS Budget Analyst.

Top 100 Economics Blogs

Last week, we highlighted a list of the top 100 Small Business podcasts. This week, we share an interesting list of the top 100 Economics blogs. This list covers a wide range of issues and perspectives. It includes blogs on international economics, business and management, finance, economic policy and much more. It also lists leading blogs by conservatives, liberals and libertarians. While you might not agree with every recommendation, the list itself offers a useful guide through the hundreds, if not thousands, of blogs that cover economics and related topics.

View CurrencyTrading.Net’s listing of the Top 100 Economics Blogs.

The National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship is an initiative of the Public Forum Institute made possible by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Through NDE-news, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving entrepreneurship around the world. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online.

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