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The Dartmouth
July 15, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Shaheen discusses small businesses

Highlighting the importance of innovation, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said the United States government must encourage small businesses to increase exports and must fund scientific research in order to maintain the nation's global competitiveness during her keynote address at the ninth annual Business and Society Conference at the Tuck School of Business on Feb. 11.

"It has become fashionable to say that this country's best days are behind us, but I don't believe for a minute that is true," Shaheen said at the event.

Throughout her lecture, Shaheen drew from her experience as a three-term governor, small business owner and current member of the U.S. Senate's Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee and Energy and Natural Resources Committee to highlight the need for American innovation across public and private sectors.

Although "businesses create jobs, not the government," Shaheen said the government plays a crucial role in helping to foster "an entrepreneurial business climate."

America must reverse the decline in funding of scientific research in order to be a "global leader" in science and technology in the future, Shaheen said.

"Federal investment in research and development as a percentage of our GDP is declining," Shaheen said.

The government must play a larger role in stimulating private sector innovation because companies often "underinvest" in such research, according to Shaheen. Thermal gloves and the Internet, two federally-funded innovations which Shaheen said were well-known to New Hampshire residents, demonstrated the importance and success of federal government research.

"The world is on the verge of the most significant economic transformations since the industrial revolution, and it's a transformation that is going to be built on the way we produce and use energy," she said. "We'll have millions of new jobs with new energy technologies, but these jobs aren't necessarily going to come to the United States. They are going to go the countries who first seriously invest in clean energies."

Science, math, technology and engineering education which Shaheen described as "stem subjects" are integral to the education of future scientists and engineers to prepare them for "cutting-edge research," she said.

While New Hampshire fourth and eighth graders lead the nation in math and science, students in the United States have fallen behind in these "stem subjects," nationwide, Shaheen said.

Although stem industries will be the "fastest growing occupational fields," few students are pursuing careers in these subjects, Shaheen said. Shaheen said she supports technology-educational programs, such as New Hampshire's FIRST robotics competitions, which "engage young people" by encouraging them to build robots to perform a set of tasks.

Shaheen said she plans to propose legislation to initiate similar programs for high schools across the nation.

During her six-year tenure as governor, her focus on the economy helped add 67,000 new jobs to the state, bringing New Hampshire to the third-highest high-tech employment in the nation, according to the event pamphlet.

Small business owners must be encouraged to trade abroad in order to combat the declining American consumer-base for American innovations, which has suffered since the economic downturn, according to Shaheen.

The Small Business Jobs Act, a 2010 bill that Shaheen helped pass, was one example of a way to encourage foreign trade, Shaheen said. The Act included several initiatives to help promote and expand small business exports, including $90 million in competitive grants to help small businesses export products to international markets, according to Shaheen.

The act also works to increase exports by advising small business owners on managing international trade rules and contacts abroad, according to Shaheen.

The event titled "Can We Innovate Our Way Out?" was sponsored by Tuck School of Business.