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The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) today published the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for its 2017 Regional Innovations Strategies (RIS) program. The application period will close June 23, 2017.  The $17 million being made available through the RIS NOFA will help to spur innovation capacity-building activities in regions across the nation. Under this competition, EDA is seeking applications for two separate funding opportunities: the i6 Challenge and the Seed Fund Support (SFS) Grant competition.  i6 Challenge ($13M): Across the country, regions and communities are helping entrepreneurs overcome challenging barriers to help build new companies and create jobs...

President Trump on April 18 signed an Executive Order (E.O.) intended, in the words of a senior administration official, to "usher in a new, more muscular Buy American policy based on the twin pillars of maximizing Made in America content and minimizing waivers and exceptions to Buy American laws." The new E.O. will likely impact companies selling or planning to sell to the federal government. By way of background, those selling to the government are often governed by either the Buy American Act ("BAA") or the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 ("TAA"). The BAA establishes a preference for domestically-manufactured...

The Greater Irvine Chamber’s International Development Committee (IDC) led an exploratory Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) delegation on a mission to the United Kingdom the week of February 13-17, 2017. Marv Sepe, COO of CTC Global and Leigh Volkland, senior director of Government Affairs, co-chairs of the IDC, worked with Chamber leadership and the business community to launch this initiative. The goal of the mission is to identify and encourage U.K.-based life science companies to invest in Irvine/Orange County by re-location, expansion, research and development, or startup partnerships. Two full days of meetings in London, one full day in...