How Does Your State Rank on the Innovation Scale?

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Innovation Is Key

Innovation is crucial to sustainable economic growth, but for innovation to occur businesses must have both the incentive and the capacity to invest.

As innovation is key to the United States’ economy as a whole, many U.S. states are showing off while others are falling short when it comes to patents, R&D, venture capital and academics.

So which states are excelling in innovation and which ones are lacking, you ask?

Patents

The top states in patents per population include:

  1. Wisconsin
  2. Washington
  3. Texas
  4. Utah
  5. California
  6. Massachusetts

The bottom five patented states include:

  1. Alaska
  2. Mississippi
  3. Tennessee
  4. West Virginia
  5. Wyoming

Venture Capital

The top states for venture capital are:

  1. Massachusetts
  2. California
  3. Utah
  4. Washington
  5. Colorado

The lowest are:

  1. Arkansas
  2. Alaska
  3. Hawaii
  4. Wyoming
  5. Iowa
  6. South Dakota

R&D Spending

The leaders in R&D spending are:

  1. Delaware
  2. Michigan
  3. California
  4. Connecticut
  5. Massachusetts

The states that spent the least on R&D include:

  1. Arkansas
  2. Wyoming
  3. Louisiana
  4. Alaska
  5. Mississippi

Academics

As for academics, the top states include:

  1. New Mexico
  2. Maryland
  3. Rhode Island
  4. Massachusetts
  5. Alabama

The lowest academic rankings were for:

  1. Louisiana
  2. Arkansas
  3. Delaware
  4. Wyoming
  5. Nevada

If you are a U.S. based company conducting R&D you may be eligible for the federal and/or state research tax credit. Please contact a Swanson Reed representative to find out further information.

Governor Carney first executive order focused on business

Governor John Carney signed his first executive order on Wednesday introducing supportive measures for Delaware’s startup community.

The executive order establishes a public-private partnership within the Delaware Economic Development Office (DEDO) and tasks a 14-member working group with finding out how the state can help Delaware’s businesses thrive and attract more talent, as well as “support innovation,” according to a release.

The group will work closely with entrepreneurs and deliver a set of recommendations to the governor this coming April.

“Delaware’s economy is in a period of significant transition, and we must adjust our efforts to compete with other states and countries for jobs and talent,” said Carney in a statement.

The initiative is promising for the startup community, which has long been calling for more support from the state.

“I look forward to seeing who is on the working group and how well they understand the needs of the startup community as a whole,” said Mona Parikh, managing director of Start It Up Delaware and the tech community liaison for UD’s Horn Program in Entrepreneurship, who was present at the signing of the order. “Or how much of an effort they put forth to understand its needs, if they are in fact not well-versed in them.”

DuPont investing $200M in Delware research center

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The existing DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delware will soon be renting out their newly redeveloped research space.

During remarks at a Delaware state chamber of commerce meeting, CEO Edward Breen told the room that “Our board of directors just approved a plan to spend $200 million to modernize and upgrade Experimental Station. We’re going to optimize many of our labs, we’re going to set up networked collaboration for our scientists, for our customers.”

Breen elaborated that the upgrade would help allow third-party companies to come in.

“They are going to have to be science-based companies. I’m hoping that there are some with contiguous things that DuPont is interested in. But we really want to use it as an incubation center,” he said.

DuPont’s Experimental Station has a remarkable history of innovation. Opened in 1903, the space was started to help transition DuPont from producing gunpowder and explosives to more chemicals. The research center became the birthplace of some of chemistry’s most notable achievements including Nylon, Kevlar, Mylar polyester and Neoprene — the first synthetic rubber.

The entire center includes more than 50 buildings on 250,000 square meters of space.

Typically around 2,000 scientists now work at the center. But after the $130-billion Dow-DuPont merger was announced in December 2015, the company laid off around 200 scientists at Experimental Station. The layoffs were part of a workforce reduction in Delaware that totaled 1,700 positions.

Some critics have argued that the proposed merger with Dow could be the “death of innovation” but DuPont has announced that it plans to spend $1.7 billion on R&D this year — up from $1.6 billion in 2016.

Several other companies already use space at Experimental Station including Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, and Hygenia, a life sciences company.