Bloomberg Business has named Massachusetts as the most innovative state in America, just beating out Silicon Valley and California in the rankings.
Bloomberg ranked all 50 states on research and development density, productivity, high-tech density, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) concentration, science and engineering degree holders, and patent activity. The ranking looked at the quantity of companies – rather than their market value – so even though California is home to the most valuable tech company in the country, Apple, that didn’t factor into the rankings.
Bloomberg applauded Massachusetts’ ability to spin off startup companies from university research, grow those companies into significant players and then in turn use those major companies to create clusters of smaller service companies.
Massachusetts’ score of 93.33 just beat out California’s 93.30. The rest of the top 10 (in order) were Washington, New Jersey, Connecticut, Oregon, Maryland, Colorado, Delaware and Minnesota. For the other New England states, New Hampshire ranked 11, Rhode Island ranked 14, Vermont ranked 25 and Maine ranked 43.
The bottom five states were Mississippi, West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas and Louisiana.
