New Jersey Knowledge Initiative - Information for Innovation

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New Jersey Knowledge Initiative:
A Beacon for Small Business and Entrepreneurs

“The Internet is a huge, dark warehouse filled with vital material necessary to New Jersey’s economic success,” declared one NJKI business user. When small business and research firms cannot afford the time and money to acquire the right tools and knowledge, they will produce inferior products that the global market will do without what New Jersey has to offer. This business owner said he can afford only a small flashlight to find a limited amount of tools in the dark warehouse, but …

… the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative
turned on the light for all New Jerseyans!

Restoration of the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative Program

Governor Corzine initially put $3 million in his FY 08 budget for the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative to continue this nationally recognized program that had more than 15 million uses of high-end databases by high-tech and medical researchers, students, teachers, entrepreneurs and small businesses. For some reason, $1 million (a third of the funding) fell out of the budget during the last four days of the budget process. Database contracts had been set to run through June 30, 2008, but with a third of the funding gone, the program will have to end on Feb. 28 if the problem is not corrected in the current year’s budget.

The impact of not restoring the $1 million dollars to the NJKI program includes:

• Small businesses, New Jersey’s backbone for economic growth, will be weakened without the information infrastructure of NJKI, despite efforts our state is making to strengthen them.

• New Jersey will pay $34 million more annually for the same resources needed by small businesses, researchers and students. Without these resources, one incentive to stay in New Jersey will be gone.

• Development of new technologies at incubators and innovation zones throughout the state will be hampered due to the lack of availability of time-embargoed data on clinical trials and scientific-related research.

• Colleges and universities, including every community college in New Jersey as well as the four major research institutions, will lose access to thousands of proprietary journals and resources vital to student and faculty research in areas key to our state’s future economic strategy.

• Community colleges could never afford these resources. Their students will be at a disadvantage when they make the transition to four-year schools.

• Workforce development will be hindered. Jobseekers and entry-level professionals will no longer have access to resources they need once they enter the workforce.

• Stem-cell research and other biotech applications will be hindered. There are at least five other states attempting to do what New Jersey has already successfully accomplished through NJKI. Start-up companies and entrepreneurs in those states will become more competitive.

• Medical and allied health-related academics, including the planned nursing doctoral program at UMDNJ, will suffer from the lack of scientific resources.

• Age-appropriate and vetted information sources supporting K-12 curriculum will be gone.

• Every college and university in the state will be scrambling during the middle of an academic semester to pull together resources to cover this unanticipated expense.

Please support the restoration of funding for the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative. Once eliminated, this program can never be restarted at the same cost-effective price.