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The U.S. bioeconomy has been estimated to be $950 billion and growing [1]. Sustaining this growth requires a skilled workforce who can manufacture goods developed through biotechnology. Scaling the biotechnology workforce to the needed level requires the ability to measure its size. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the federal agency responsible for gathering education data in the U.S. Colleges that receive federal funding are mandated by law to report data every year to the NCES. Given the comprehensive nature of these data, we sought to determine whether it could be used to measure the number of certificates and degrees in biotechnology awarded by two-year colleges. An unexpected challenge was the requirement by the NCES data retrieval page for Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) codes and the inconsistent use of CIP codes by college biotechnology programs. We were able to circumvent these challenges by using data from the InnovATEBIO National Center for Biotechnology Education. InnovATEBIO data allowed us to identify two-year colleges with biotechnology programs and use those results to learn which CIP codes were being assigned. Knowing the CIP codes and their use in different states supplied the information we needed to obtain certificate and degree completion data from the NCES. These data provided insights into the changing numbers and demographics of biotech students during the past twenty years. Not only are these data important for understanding trends in biotechnology education, they are imperative for guiding the initiation, development, and sustainability of biotechnology education programs at two-year colleges.
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Understanding the U.S. Bioeconomy: A New Definition and Landscape
This article provides an overview of the U.S. bioeconomy, discussing how its definition has evolved and been formalized over time. The first attempts to conceptualize and define the U.S. bioeconomy began in the early 1990s. This was followed by a series of government and private efforts to develop methods to understand and evaluate it and to develop programs to promote it. These efforts culminated in the 2020 release of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), Safeguarding the Bioeconomy report. The report recommended a formal definition of the U.S. bioeconomy, providing the rationale for that particular definition in the U.S. context. Formally adopting a comprehensive definition of the U.S. bioeconomy would enable the U.S. government to better assess the bioeconomy’s current state, to develop strategies to support its growth, and to promote strategies to safeguard it. Along with this recommendation, the NASEM Safeguarding report also discussed defining the “bioeconomy landscape,” which involves more precise determination and quantification of which economic activities are part of and external to the U.S. economy. Defining this landscape could guide metric development and data collection needed to track the bioeconomy’s growth, conduct economic assessments, and enable policy makers to keep abreast of advances that could potentially pose new national or economic security challenges. The report also includes an analysis of the broad range national bioeconomy strategies, identification of the four drivers of the U.S. bioeconomy, and the first of its kind, comprehensive estimate of the size and scope of the U.S. bioeconomy of USD 959B (valued in 2016 constant USD ).
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- Award ID(s):
- 1937338
- PAR ID:
- 10300453
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Sustainability
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 2071-1050
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1627
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041627
