In my last post, I promised a look at why the term “graduated” makes little sense to me in the context of the National Science Foundation’s centers programs. I can adduce some theoretical arguments for my position, and I’ve also assembled a quick-and-dirty table (after the break) summarizing what I could find via superficial Web searching about the current status of centers that NSF regards as “graduated” from the ERC, I/U CRC, and MRSEC programs.

This empirical exploration revealed a bit more evidence for sustainability than I’d suspected, but on the whole I think it’s still unduly optimistic to believe that once federal funding stops, a university-based center will necessarily retain the essential characteristics of what was originally envisioned. That’s not to say the funding has been a failure, only that expectations for sustainability may be unduly high, or perhaps irrelevant.

FORTUNE -- 3M is everywhere. That's the point George Buckley, the chairman and CEO of 3M, is trying to make as he talks about his favorite subject, inventing things. Last year, he says, "even in the worst economic times in memory, we released over 1,000 new products."

As if on cue, Buckley's new iPhone rings, showing a photo of his daughter. "Daddy's in a meeting," he says, and hangs up.

"I'm told there's some 3M inside that phone," I say. Buckley replies, "There's lots of 3M inside." He can't say exactly what 3M (MMM, Fortune 500) gadget is in the iPhone; Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) skittish about such things. But point well made: 3M is everywhere.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today signed an agreement with TechComm, an affiliate of the Center for Innovation in Arlington, Texas, to foster agricultural research opportunities between businesses and universities in the Southwestern United States and to help commercialize USDA-developed technologies.

Officials with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the Center for Innovation signed the Partnership Intermediary Agreement today in Arlington, Texas. The Center also has a similar agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), allowing the Center to help coordinate projects between ARS, DoD and NIH. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.

The MIT offspring, Assured Labor, connects job-seekers with employers via mobile SMS.

Assured Labor's Founder and CEO, David Reich, thought up his idea for a mobile, text-message-based employment service for low-income individuals while a graduate student at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He got together with fellow students at MIT and Harvard and together they hashed out a plan to launch in Boston, then slowly take over the world. With co-founders from around the U.S. and around the globe, the team launched in Mexico this week. From Mexico City, Reich told Fast Company how the latest launch is going.

A decade ago U.S. venture firms were considering European expansion as firms like Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital led the charge. Accel is still there and Benchmark’s unit spun out as Balderton Capital, but most firms shelved their ambitions after the dot-com bubble burst.

But in 2007, Highland Capital Partners took the plunge, sending General Partner Fergal Mullen, a native of Ireland, to open the firm’s first European office in Geneva. Now, Lexington, Mass.-based Highland has added a second general partner, Laurence Garrett, formerly with 3i Group PLC, to its Geneva office.

We talked to Mullen about the investment climate in Europe and Highland’s plans there. Here is the edited interview:

Welcome to the entrepreneurial economy: small firms are playing an ever-increasing role in innovation, driven by changes in technologies and markets.Whilst some spin-offs and high growth firms are having remarkable success, however, the broad bulk of small firms are not capitalising on their advantages.

This book explores how government policy can boost innovation by improving the environment for entrepreneurship and small firm development and increasing the innovative capacities of enterprises. Policy findings and recommendations are presented in three key areas: embedding firms in knowledge flows; developing entrepreneurship skills; and social entrepreneurship. In addition, country notes present statistics and policy data on SMEs, entrepreneurship and innovation for 40 economies, including OECD countries, Brazil, China, Estonia, Indonesia, Israel, the Russian Federation, Slovenia and South Africa.

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in Paris, and the streets of the Latin Quarter are teeming with life. People are strolling, shopping, lounging in cafés and queuing up around the block to see a new romantic comedy featuring two bankable French stars, Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis.

If you've been feeling that our country isn't as hot a place for entrepreneurs as it once was, it's not your imagination. A new study from the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy shows the U.S. has sunk to third place when it comes to fostering entrepreneurial creativity. Researchers for the SBA took a look at the Global Enterpreneurship and Development Index, which looks at more than a dozen primary attributes for supporting entrepreneurial effort. The upshot: The U.S. now ranks third behind Denmark and -- brace yourself! -- Canada.

Where are we going wrong? The study found America strong in competitiveness, startup skills, and new technology, but we fall short in cultural support for entrepreneurs, our tech sector is weakening compared with other countries' tech effort, and as a result we have fewer high-growth businesses. Reasons we are weak in these areas include fallout from the dot-com bubble of the early '00s, the recession, and simply the comparatively better progress made by other countries.

If California wants to get its innovation game back, says venture capitalist Tom Baruch, it should look at Michigan.

That wasn't a misprint — much-maligned, Rust Belt-tagged Michigan.

We’re talking about my ancestral homeland here. I grew up in the southwest part of the state, where the recession and oil embargo of the 1970s drove unemployment in my little town above 40 percent.

I lived in funny-named places like Kalamazoo and Ypsilanti — both home to state universities and large auto plants — owned a home in one of the state’s innovation hubs, Ann Arbor, and worked in Oakland County, the biggest beneficiary of Detroit’s decline.

When TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington barged in on a secret meeting of super angels, the wealthy individuals who are taking an increasingly prominent role in startup investing, the facts were open to interpretation. Arrington alleged that he heard the meeting was about illegal collusion. That seemed so unlikely. But now an email sent by investor Ron Conway (right) shows that there is a real fracture in the angel group about whether there was an attempt at collusion, as Arrington alleged.

Two days ago, Arrington wrote a post where he alleged that the secret meeting that he crashed was in fact an attempt by a group of super angels, or well-heeled investors with their own funds, to illegally collude by agreeing to hold down startup valuations. At the time, it seemed pretty implausible that such a well-known group of smart people would try to get away with such a hare-brained scheme. (After all, these angels don’t control a significant percentage of the angel money being invested in companies).

After record-setting spending to keep the economy from the brink of collapse, the public has grown wary, even hostile, to the idea of more government pump priming. Even those who advocate additional public investment face daunting budget constraints. Does this mean that government is hamstrung when it comes to spurring innovation? Not at all. In its report, "Innovation Policy on a Budget: Driving Innovation in a Time of Fiscal Constraint," ITIF lays out a nine key ways to keep innovation going even if funds are limited. They include regulations to encourage rather than inhibit innovation, smarter tax policies, procurement reform, better use of technology to drive innovation and more.

Read the report.

The new Wall Street movie has a lot of low points, but you should still see it.

If for nothing else, because of these 10 reasons.

A story by Xconomy’s Sylvia Pagán Westphal recently highlights a new approach to technology transfer licensing being taken by UNC Chapel Hill’s Office of Technology Development: The Carolina Express License.

At first glance, the agreement looks, as Westphal puts it, “not very sweet for the university.” UNC takes 0.75% of any exit transaction, but no equity, no milestones and only a 1% or 2% royalty. Here’s Westphal’s description of the UNC approach (including a witty juxtaposition of religious imagery):

“They call it the holy grail of tech transfer, though critics, I reckon, think of it more as heresy. Either way, it’s gutsy.”

“Commercial-scale solar developers are already offering utilities electricity at 14 cents or less per kWh. Duke Energy and Progress Energy are limiting or rejecting these offers and pushing ahead with plans for nuclear plants which, if ever completed, would generate electricity at much higher costs — 14–18 cents per kilowatt-hour according to present estimates.”

This is the research conclusion from a study entitled Solar and Nuclear Costs — The Historic Crossover authored by John O. Blackburn, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Economics and former Chancellor, Duke University.

The study’s premise is that traditional energy supplies including fossil and nuclear energy are experiencing what economists called “upward cost curves” or in other words, their costs keep going up and are not likely to ever go back down. However, the research claims of Blackburn/Cunningham are that renewable energy has achieved a “downward cost curve” over the last decade, namely that their prices have gone down and there is a strong likelihood that they will continue to fall in price.

Last month the World Economic Forum released its 2010-2011 Global Competitiveness Report.  Among the 131 countries analyzed, the United States ranks fourth overall for global competitiveness (down from ranking second in 2009 and first in 2008) but ranks number one for innovation. Such a finding should comfort policy analysts and policy makers who have long augured America is losing its innovation edge. It seems, while we could do better in overall global competiveness, when it comes to innovation the United States is the gold standard.  All is well.

But what are studies like the Global Competitiveness Report actually measuring?  According the methodology section of the report, over two-thirds of the indicators are derived from what the WEF calls the “Executive Opinion Study.”  The survey asks business leaders throughout the world questions such as, “How would you rate the protection of property rights, including financial assets, in your country? [1 = very weak; 7 = very strong].”  For the report’s innovation subsection only one of the indicators—utility patents per million population—is based on hard data.

Local government and economic officials are expected to announce a new economic development plan in Arlington on Sept. 23 based on transferring federal technology to the commercial market.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is expected to unveil the plan during the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s annual Gala and Awards Banquet. Hutchison worked with Chamber leaders to secure funding for TechComm (Technology, Commercialization & Manufacturing), a new partnership between the Arlington Chamber and the University of Texas at Arlington.

Part of me feels compelled to invoke the folktale of the frog and the scorpion. You know the story: The scorpion seeks a ride across the river, and the frog refuses, fearing the scorpion's poisonous sting. The scorpion pleads, "You can trust me." And the frog acquiesces. But as the frog bears the scorpion across the water, he feels the sting. And as the poison spreads through the frog's body, paralyzing his limbs, he asks the scorpion why he stung him as now, they both will drown. "It's in my nature," says the scorpion.

Honestly, I'm not sure whose nature I really want to allude to as poisonous here, in a day full of accusations and denials in the tech investment world. And while the tale of the scorpion and the frog is perhaps a cliched cautionary one, the story seems appropriate nonetheless.

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