Innovation and Entrepreneurship Report Card
Virginia Performs tracks a number of broad indicators of Virginia's economy, including employment and income. The Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I and E) Report Card is designed to enhance our understanding of the factors behind these and other key economy outcomes and to strengthen the foundations for future prosperity in the Commonwealth.
Entrepreneurship and innovation help drive economic competitiveness and figure prominently in economic development strategic planning. Innovation – the introduction of new ideas, processes, or products – helps create new businesses and spurs existing businesses to create more value for their customers. Entrepreneurs are the agents who capitalize on innovation to start and expand businesses.
This report card identifies many of the key drivers for both encouraging innovation and tracking its economic results. The report card also complements the information found in our Innovation and Entrepreneurship indicator and echoes some of the detailed performance assessment being done on the individual state agency level.
View a hi-res print version of this report card: print PDF
Changes in Performance this Quarter
Trend changes on the report card from the first quarter of 2016 are as follows:
- Worsening to Improving: Federal R&D Spending in Virginia
- Maintaining to Improving: Public Sector Investment
- Improving to Maintaining: Virginia FIRST Participation, Patents, High-tech Employment, High-tech Payroll Share, Market Share
- Maintaining to Worsening: Private Investment
2015 Changes in the Report Card
In addition to condensing and eliminating certain indicators from the 2014 report card, the current Innovation and Entrepreneurship Report Card introduces four new indicators:
- Entrepreneurship Experience (Talent Pipeline) captures the array of activities at Virginia universities to promote entrepreneurship, including formal degree programs, entrepreneurship centers and clubs, and hands-on learning programs.
- Science and Engineering Workforce (Talent Pipeline) measures the number of Virginians employed in science and engineering jobs and serves as an important indicator for talent development.
- University Environment (Commercialization) tracks university activity in:
- sponsoring research relationships
- promoting faculty and student startups outside of formal university commercialization requirements
- tenure policies for faculty engaged in the commercialization of research
- developing seed and proof-of-concept funding.
- Academic Science and Engineering R&D Expenditures (Research and Development) assesses what universities spend on basic and applied research activities in science and engineering (expressed as a share of state GDP); these expenditures can lead to technologies suitable for commercial application.
Much more detail on these and the remaining indicators on the I and E Report Card can be found in the Center for Innovative Technology's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Measurement System (IEMS).
