WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Brookings Institute is coming to Rhode Island this week to conduct the first in a series of what it called town halls to engage with the community about its initial findings in its efforts to create a future economic strategy for the state.

The first session is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 19, at the Newport campus of the Community College of Rhode Island, from 2:30 - 4 p.m.

Two other sessions will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 27: one in the morning at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, the second in the afternoon at Amica Mutual Insurance headquarters in Lincoln.

The $1.3 million strategic planning initiative, paid for by private contributions from nonprofit philanthropies, including The Rhode Island Foundation and the van Beuren Charitable Foundation, was first announced on Aug. 7 in a late Friday afternoon news release by Gov. Gina Raimondo.

In that news release, R.I. Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor, who was described as being responsible for “spearheading” the engagement, defined the purpose of the strategic planning effort: “We aim to develop a high-impact strategy that builds upon Rhode Island’s strengths and advances our economy.”

While the study is being privately financed without taxpayer dollars, giving the appearance that the study was independent from the sway of political leaders, the Brookings Institute team has been closely coordinating their work with both Raimondo and Pryor.

“They [are] the first stakeholder among many,” said Mark Muro, policy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute, in an interview with WPRI’s Ted Nesi.

Listening posts
Now, about half way through the strategic planning effort, the town hall sessions seek to capture public input from business and civic leaders about what are the state’s best growth opportunities, the condition of its economic drivers, and barriers to growth, according to the news release from Brookings.

The town hall sessions will be led by the Brookings team leaders: Muro, and Bruce Katz, the Institute’s vice-president.

Muro and Katz are to be joined on the stage at the Oct. 19 session by Gov. Gina Raimondo, who is scheduled to make introductory remarks.

In turn, leaders of the van Beuren Charitable Foundation and the Rhode Island Foundation, which are two of the major funders of the $1.3 million strategic planning effort, are also scheduled to talk.

Divining the landscape
In advance of the town hall sessions, ConvergenceRI spoke with Mark Muro to try and get a better sense of the progress to date and the focus of the strategic planning effort.

In particular, ConvergenceRI hoped to tease out more details about a central focus in the Rhode Island study: advanced industries that rely on science and technology.

In his interview with Nesi, Muro said the analysis would take “a somewhat cold-eyed view” of the actual capabilities and potential research departments at local universities and colleges.

“Clearly, a central question here is, what capabilities really exist?” Muro told Nesi. “You have on paper a very attractive array of science entities, so we’re really trying to get a handle on what is going on, what they are good at, how they can feed into a meaningful strategy.”

These are testable propositions, Muro continued. “I don’t mean that in a snarky way. It’s simply that there are data sets you can get, there are rankings you could get,” to determine the actual strength of the state’s research engine.

Beyond the numbers
ConvergenceRI’s interview with Muro identified that there still may be some significant knowledge gaps when it came to understanding the potential of the biomedical industry sector and its research engine to drive Rhode Island’s future innovation-based economic development.

Surprisingly, for instance, Muro said that he was unfamiliar with IlluminOss, the commercial stage medical device firm headquartered in East Providence, poised to become Rhode Island’s next billion dollar company if it succeeds in commercializing its revolutionary bone fracture technology and capturing $1.4 billion of the $3 billion U.S. market.

Commercialization is slated for 2017, following successful clinical trials in the U.S. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below.]

Muro also appeared to be somewhat unfamiliar with the latest developments at EpiVax and at Luc Therapeutics.

On a positive note, Muro did ask ConvergenceRI to send him the links to the story. [For the record, Muro also admitted that he was not very familiar with ConvergenceRI, either. After reading the newsletter, Muro called ConvergenceRI "illuminating."]

Here then, is the interview with Mark Muro, policy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute, on the verge of the town hall tour of Rhode Island.

ConvergenceRI: What are the benchmarks you are using to define the metrics for Rhode Island’s future economy?
MURO: We’re looking closely at indicators that point to either the state having a special competitive position in an industry, or that industry has a potential for growth.

We are making sure that these indicators are important in [in terms of] ROI, and that they are ones that matter for growth in the future.

ConvergenceRI: Are you familiar with the annual Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy?
MURO: Yes.

ConvergenceRI: Do you think that a similar benchmark index is needed here in Rhode Island?
MURO: We are drawing on a significant amount of benchmarking to assess the density, growth and nature of industries [in Rhode Island] and their supporting institutions.

What is the research and development flow through the universities? How much is in partnership with industry? What are the kinds of metrics around research in the creation of new firms? And so on.

The [goal of the] benchmarking of information is to try and identify the true economic strengths [in Rhode Island] – and how those strengths [compare] in relationship to other places. We’re [looking to identify] some areas that can be truly competitive, not just in New England, but nationally.

[The benchmarking] is very much built on comparisons between [Rhode Island and other] states, and the strengths of a particular industry, in an array [of metrics].

ConvergenceRI: How are you measuring job creation?
MURO: Our strategy to measure employment trends in advanced industries is to define a group – the advanced industry complex of R&D industries – that employ a large number of STEM or STEAM employees in high-value industries.

Over the last 20 years, [Rhode Island] has lost some traction [in employment] in this set of advanced industries. That is the core challenge, to arrest that [drop] in traction and build new programs.

ConvergenceRI: The previous work done in 2013 on future economic strategy by the Fourth Economy, commissioned by The Rhode Island Foundation, seemed to leave out the biomedical industry cluster as a major target for future Rhode Island economic growth, much to the dismay of many practitioners in that industry sector. Are you familiar with the controversy?
MURO: A little bit. We do see some strength in that area, as we define the cluster. We see an array of interlinked sub-industries that [show] some strength in that area. It’s likely an area that the state should be thinking about. Next week we’ll have some things to say about it.

One of the issues we see is that these companies are often quite small; [they are] micro-clusters.

[The challenge] will be to roll those up and connect things, to be able to link the constellations of some pretty interesting activities, the linkages between pharmaceutical psychiatric [drug development], neurosciences and orthopedics, and digital health and health IT.

[The question] is: what do you call it, and how do you label that?

ConvergenceRI: Have you scheduled meetings with the key players in that sector, beyond quantifying the numbers?
MURO: In piecing together an accurate feel for the industry strengths in Rhode Island, there is some art as well as science involved.

We have engaged in good, qualitative discussions, quite a lot of discussions, using those discussions to try and get at the interconnections. It’s subtle; it can reveal some quite interesting strengths.

ConvergenceRI: How are you defining cluster? Is it the traditional Michael Porter definition?
MURO: Our process begins with conventional codes, very detailed codes, and then we roll that up with information from qualitative sources.

For larger aggregations, a core competency analysis that assumes just having an industry is insufficient. You have to consider the array of supportive institutions, the momentum of the startups, and try to merge a large number of inputs into straight data, and then factor the [link] to significant markets: is it an industry that defines its potential growth because there’s a large market opportunity in the nation or the world?

ConvergenceRI: How important is it for Rhode Island to be able to scale up its start-up and early-stage companies to become, say, billion-dollar companies?
MURO: We think, at this point, there is insufficient commercialization going on in Rhode Island at any scale.

Billion-dollar companies are desirable for anyone. But Rhode Island could do very well simply by scaling up smaller and middle-sized growth companies, to begin to get that progression from research and entrepreneurship activity to the beginning of growth companies.

ConvergenceRI: One of the next billion-dollar companies in Rhode Island may be IlluminOss Medical, headquartered in East Providence. Are you familiar with them?
MURO: Not really. But feel free to send us any stories about them, if you think it would be interesting and relevant for us.

ConvergenceRI: The leading private employer in Rhode Island is the health industry sector. The leading driver in future job growth creation is the health sector, including the prediction that some 4,500 new nurses will be needed by 2018, according to the state’s Department of Labor and Training. Both Bryant University and Johnson & Wales have begun new academic programs for physician assistants. Brown University has launched its master’s program in executive health care.

How will this fit into your equation?
MURO: We think the health sector, broadly defined, will play a critical role in the state’s biomedical innovation success. We need more collaborations and startups.

You can look at Shape Up as an example of success.

There are good strengths in some of the immune system disease areas, and in neurosciences.

ConvergenceRI: In Massachusetts, the Brookings Institute underwrote the pioneering Gateway Cities study. How is that work applicable to Rhode Island?
MURO: I worked on the Gateway Cities study… [Muro indicated that his window of opportunity for the interview was up.] 

ConvergenceRI: Thanks for your time. One more question. Beyond talent and technology, the third big factor is capital in growing the knowledge economy. Does it matter where the venture capital comes from? Or, does Rhode Island need to create its own form of technology investment fund, similar to what Massachusetts did with its Life Sciences initiative?
MURO: We are actively looking at the finance issue, especially in growth areas and what appear to be compelling growth opportunities.

No doubt that you have to get a degree of control over your own destiny. It seems that Providence is in a rain shadow. But we are not prepared to suggest a model yet.