The Geography of Self-Reported Innovation : Results from the 2017 Annual Business Survey

On May 5, 2020, the National Science Board ( NSB ) released its Vision 2030 report ( NSB 2020 ) , which lays out four central priorities for the National Science Foundation this decade. One such priority, “ expand the geography of innovation, ” envisions innovation hubs operating in every state to help retain the nation ’ s leadership in the science and engineering enterprise. This working paper uses the very large sample size of the 2017 Annual Business Survey ( N ≈ 850,000 ) to produce substate-level estimates of self-reported innovation rates. The analysis provides a baseline for assessing efforts to actively seed and nurture innovation clusters throughout the country, identifying areas that are exceeding expectations and others that may be falling behind. Because the concentration of innovation-intensive industry varies across the country, a relative innovation rate that controls for the innovation rate expected from a region ’ s industrial structure is provided. The analysis is descriptive and does not examine possible explanations of differences in regional innovation rates.

Source: NSF - Statistics on U.S. Science and Engineering Resources - April 20, 2022 Category: Statistics Source Type: news