USTAR Competitive Grant Programs is sponsored by Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative (USTAR). Provides competitive grants to university researchers and early-stage technology companies in Utah to support technology commercialization.

Fully fund USTAR request | SSTI Admittedly, it sounded a little pie-in-the-sky at the outset. The state would spend $25 million a year to recruit "rock star" researchers and create innovation teams. Additional funding would help construct research facilities and create outreach programs statewide.

In time, the outcomes of the research would be commercialized, paying dividends to the state, the Utah Science, Technology and Research Initiative and the researchers themselves. Thousands of high-paying jobs would be created in the process. The Utah Legislature took a cautious approach to the USTAR Initiative.

It clearly liked the concept, unanimously approving SB75 in the 2006 legislative session. But it didn't approve a full $25 million in funding. Instead, it authorized $15 million to recruit innovators and create research teams, and approved $4 million for outreach efforts as well as $160 million for research facilities at the University of Utah and Utah State University.

Thus far, the original investment has helped glean more than $34 million in external research grants to the teams, created two patents, led directly to a new company in Utah and lured another to relocate to the state. Eleven research teams have been created and 15 "all star" innovators have been hired. That's an impressive track record.

The Utah Legislature should take note and now appropriate the full $25 million in ongoing funds to the USTAR Initiative. It's an important investment in Utah's future. More so, it's a modest investment considering what neighboring states plan to spend on attracting researchers, building and equipping research facilities and, eventually, getting new technology and discoveries to market.

California, Arizona and Colorado, for instance, plan to spend billions over the next decade or two to compete for the top researchers and to help commercialize their innovations. Utah does not have such deep pockets.

But the University of Utah and Utah State University have been able to attract some of the nation's top innovators because of their commitment to interdisciplinary research and the Utah Population Database, which is the largest and most complete database in the nation for use in biomedical research. Few initiatives can demonstrate such progress in such a short time.

USTAR is a sound investment that should pay off by improving lives and creating thousands of high-paying jobs in the future. Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City) Three academic researchers estimate that the localized job creation impacts resulting from the CHIPS and Science Act already have had a net gain of 12% in the affected counties. The direct jobs in the semiconductor sector alone are 15,000-16,000 short-term positions.

With the high-paying nature of jobs in the field, researchers Bilge Erten, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and Eric Verhoogen estimate that, as a spillover effect, 15,000 to 30,000 additional indirect jobs have been created in related sectors.

Useful Stats: Sectoral contributions to county GDP Policymakers should be interested in which sectors are present in their region to ensure TBED investments and workforce priorities can have the greatest impact. Exploring gross domestic product (GDP) at the county level offers a detailed look at the economic output of sectors and how they shape local economies.

At the county level, data for smaller or more rural counties may reveal nuances invisible when looking broadly at entire MSAs or states, particularly for those areas with lower populations. National VC trends and which states are bucking them National VC investment over the past five years has seen significant swings, first driven by pandemic impacts and rebounds, then by the rocket ride of AI.

According to PitchBook data, national VC activity below $100 million declined from nearly 10,500 deals in 2020 to just under 8,200 in 2025, a 22% drop. Over the same period, the total capital invested increased by just over $5 billion (6%). The trend of more funding into fewer deals is highlighted by the median deal size more than doubling to over $4 million (Fig 1).

These macro trends are important as they set the stage for what is happening at the state level. 1391 W 5th Avenue Ste 323, Columbus OH 43212