Although North Dakota’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) has declined since 2013, the energy boom in earlier years gave the state the fastest increase over the past 10- and 20-year periods, according to an SSTI analysis of recently updated state GDP data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Beyond North Dakota, the 10 years from 2008 to 2018 benefitted per capita GDP in states with a prominent knowledge economy, led by New York, California, Washington and Massachusetts. In general, per-capita gross product serves as a useful metric because it can show a state’s relative economic performance against its peers and over time. This article examines state GDP per capita over the past 20 years.*

Many regional economic development strategies emphasize employment in manufacturing or high-tech, as these industries tend to provide well-paying jobs. Through an analysis of American Community Survey five-year data for 2013-2017, SSTI assessed state-level employment concentration within these sectors.

The overall employment outlook for the recipients of doctorate degrees earned at U.S. institutions has improved from 2015 to 2019, while the research activities conducted by these highly trained and educated individuals has started to shift away from basic and applied research activities towards activities focused on design and development. Doctorate recipients play an essential role in developing the knowledge base leveraged in creating new technologies and companies in the innovation economy.

Despite the shutdown of many business and government activities during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the total number of SBIR/STTR awards made to innovation-focused companies continued to increase over record-breaking 2019 levels, rising 3.7 percent. This edition of SSTI’s Useful Stats examines the total number of SBIR/STTR awards and the top awarding agency by state in 2020.

Building on previous SSTI analysis showing that Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) expenditures increased across the U.S. despite the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this edition of Useful Stats examines the distribution of R&D spending among the various fields of research at the nation’s colleges and universities.

Continuing a streak lasting at least 10 years, the federal government was again the top funder of Higher Education R&D (HERD) in 2020. However, new SSTI analysis shows that the federal share of HERD funding has continued to decline nationally and in most states over the 10-year period from 2011 to 2020. This edition of SSTI’s Useful Stats provides an analysis of HERD funders by state in 2020, and an examination of 10-year trends for the period from 2011 to 2020 in HERD funding by source. 

PitchBook and NVCA’s Venture Monitor for 2019 largely depicts continued trends from 2018: $100 million-plus investments, $2 million-plus average for angel and seed deals, and more than 10,000 investments of more than $100 billion. In a few cases, 2019 data suggests average deal sizes may have peaked in 2018, but more time is needed to clarify the trend.

Building on SSTI’s recent analysis of county-level GDP by industry, this edition moves beyond a single year and examines the changes in real — adjusted for inflation — county GDP and the changes in industry-specific contributions to county GDP for the 10-year period from 2009 to 2018. As shown in the interactive map below, the total 10-year growth rate for counties averaged approximately 21 percent.

An important element of a region’s innovation community is its knowledge capital, and one way to try to determine a locality’s knowledge capital is to examine the number of individuals receiving research-based doctorate degrees in the science and engineering (S&E) fields. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently updated their Survey of Earned Doctorates with data for the 2018-2019 academic year.

A large majority (nearly 87 percent) of U.S. counties showed growth in their gross domestic product (GDP) from 2018 to 2019, according to an SSTI analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). GDP is the measure for the total value of goods and services produced in an area, and is one of the primary economic indicators used by researchers and policymakers. This edition of Useful Stats examines the recently updated (BEA) data and provides an analysis of 2019 total county GDP, 2019 county GDP per capita, and the percent change in each measure from 2018 to 2019.

A thriving innovation economy requires a robust R&D enterprise — with participation by academia, government, and the private sector. As a substantial performer and funder of R&D in the United States, the strength of private industry’s R&D activity in a region can provide an indication of the region’s capacity for bringing innovative technologies to market.

This week’s edition of Useful Stats examines the contributions to county-level GDP in 2019 by industry group. Specifically, this analysis identifies the industries that contributed the most to the economic output of each county in 2019, finding that the real estate and rental and leasing; manufacturing; and government and government enterprises industry groups were vital economic drivers in terms of both their contributions to national GDP as well as the number of counties where they were the top contributor.

Industry investment in research and development (R&D) indicates, literally, how invested each state’s businesses are in creating new products and processes. To better-understand industry’s commitment to innovation, business R&D can be viewed as a percentage of each state’s private sector gross domestic product (GDP), providing a measure of research intensity. This measure highlights substantial differences in the orientation of states’ businesses toward research, with some states seeing an investment rate of less than 1 percent while others are above 5 percent.

Understanding enrollment trends at the nation’s institutions of higher education — an important indicator of the knowledge capital and skilled workforce available to local innovation economies — is paramount in developing appropriate strategies to bolster local and regional innovation and entrepreneurship. While many institutional reports cover only one or a few years’ worth of enrollment data, evaluating long-run trends can help policymakers and program designers identify issues that might otherwise be hidden, enabling the development of more effective policies and programs.

Developing local assets and nurturing local talent in science and engineering (S&E) is paramount to productive innovation economies. Institutions of higher education (IHEs) are arguably the most important elements of these local knowledge-capital assets — housing physical R&D infrastructure, training new scientists and engineers, and creating and disseminating new knowledge across the academic, public, and private sectors.

The R&D performed at colleges and universities is an important driver for the innovation economy — generating new knowledge, spurring invention, training STEM talent, and supporting economic development. This edition of SSTI’s Useful Stats analyzes metropolitan-level data for 2019 from the National Science Foundation on higher education R&D (HERD) expenditures and personnel. Nearly 981,000 individuals in higher education across the U.S. were classified as R&D personnel in 2019.

Editor's note: SSTI discovered that NASA updated their data which was used in this article after its publication. Specifically, the update included previously omitted 2020 application and awards data for Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, and Nevada; and 2014 data for Iowa. While the changes to the data were minute, we strive to provide the most accurate and reliable data available. As such, the article and the interactive graphic below have been updated to reflect these changes.

Enrollment in the nation’s institutions of higher education is an important indicator of the knowledge capital available to local innovation economies. This edition of Useful Stats explores enrollment data from the recently updated National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) report , Current Term Enrollment Estimates, covering spring term enrollment trends at degree-granting institutions of higher education.

Understanding the industry-level dynamics of business and job creation can help pinpoint which industries in regional economies may be hotspots for innovation activity.

Innovations are often born from small businesses, operating with few employees, if any at all, to bring new technologies and processes to market. However, new small businesses frequently fail and are not the only source of innovation.

Higher levels of business creation can be linked to the presence of innovation in a state through entrepreneurial activity and transitioning to new industries, and this edition of Useful Stats examines data from the Census Bureau’s recently updated Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) on net establishment formation and the job creation stemming from those establishments in 2019. While figures vary widely among the states, most saw growth in both net establishment creation and net job creation in 2019; this data is prior to the onset of the pandemic in early 2020.

Understanding how federal funding for the science and engineering (S&E) activities of the nation’s institutions of higher education (IHEs) is distributed locally within states can help innovation leaders develop programs and policies tailored more carefully to the varying conditions of regional innovation economies.

This edition of SSTI’s Useful Stats examines the expected allocation of approximately $8.5 billion in State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funding by state and allocation category based on the Department of the Treasury’s recent guidance update.

While the overall U.S. venture capital market has drawn headlines for record-breaking total investment levels in 2021, the story has been far different for smaller deals. Data currently suggests a decline in deals under $1 million, and only modest growth for deals under $5 million. The final data may tell a slightly different story,[1] but the level of activity at the smaller end of the spectrum is clearly quite different than what is driving market coverage.