Maryland Releases Innovation Index

With last week’s release of “The Maryland Innovation and Technology Index 1999,” Maryland became the latest state to release an “S&T report card” as they are also sometimes called. Indices have become popular tools for benchmarking a state’s or region’s comparative position across several technological, economic, and social

statistical indicators. Interest in using broad metrics to assist in the definition of specific state science and technology policy has grown so rapidly that the subject was one of the most requested sessions for the upcoming SSTI annual conference.



The Maryland Index compares the state to five other East Coast states along 42 statistical indicators categorized among three groups:

• Performance -- the economic impact of commercialized innovations,
• Dynamics -- the processes employed to enhance the likelihood of commercializable innovation, and
• Resources -- the human, intellectual, physical and financial capital or infrastructure available in the state to support innovation.

For each of the 42 indicators, the report addresses why the measure was included in the Index and assesses Maryland’s performance. Because of Maryland’s proximity to Washington, DC and the federal government’s significant influence on the state’s economy and technological profile, the Index covers federal R&D investments and activities in greater detail than most other state indices completed to date. Selected indicators are:



Performance: private sector technology employment by industry and by state; growth in technology employment by industry and by state; the location quotient of Maryland high tech industries; high tech manufactured output; merchandise exports; growth in high tech services output and export receipts; new company generation; entrepreneurial dynamism; number, size, type and comparative share of initial public offerings; high tech wage growth by industry; and, personal income per capita.



Dynamics: patents issued; technology-related venture capital investments; university invention disclosures, patent applications, licenses and license revenues; university-related start-up creation by state; federal technology procurements; ATP, SBIR, and STTR awards; industry-financed R&D expenditures and doctorate-granting institutions; Maryland Industrial Partnerships Programs awards; high technology manufacturing productivity by industry and by state; technology services productivity

by state; and, capital investment in technology businesses.



Resources: R&D as a percentage of gross State Product; R&D performers and federal funding by state and agency; federal obligations for R&D performed in Maryland; distribution of federal funding by agency and share by state; state support for R&D and R&D plant; higher education quality; educational attainment technology-related employment; number of Ph.D. scientists and engineers in the workforce by state; mean wages of technology workers; number and retention of science and engineering graduate students; standardized test scores; and telecommunications infrastructure.



The Maryland index was developed by the Maryland Technology Alliance, an affiliation of private sector, academic, federal, and state government organizations, to develop a factual baseline for strategic technology planning. The Office of the State Technology Coordinator within the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) funded the initiative. The report was prepared by Marsha Schachtel, senior

fellow at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. The Maryland Technology Alliance is now looking into the policy implications of the findings.



If you have Copies of “The Maryland Innovation and Technology Index 1999,” can be downloaded from the DBED website at: http://www.mdbusiness.state.md.us/reports/



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