The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC) has released a new tool for measuring the development of the state’s Knowledge Economy, entitled “Benchmarking the Rhode Island Knowledge Economy”.  Conducted by Camoin Associates and Innovation Policyworks over a period of six months, the report is the first step in measuring the state’s progress in growing the Knowledge Economy.  “What we have created is designed to establish a baseline from which Rhode Island businesses, policy makers and institutions can measure progress and track future development,” said Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. “This is important information that will allow us to understand what drives a strong Knowledge Economy and then organize our public policies and strategic investments around that information.”

Developed around 23 key indicators, the study compares Rhode Island to other New England states, 27 EPSCoR states, which are those that have been designated by the National Science Foundation as part of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research and the United States as a whole. The indicators are organized into four categories representing key components of a knowledge-based economy: RI’s Knowledge Economy; The Knowledge Business Pipeline; Research and Development and The Workforce for the Knowledge Economy.

According to the study there are many areas where Rhode Island is doing well including high speed Internet access, venture capital investments, research and development, educational attainment and patents issued. It also noted where the state could focus additional effort including stemming the net migration of persons 22-39 years of age, getting more scientists and engineers in the workforce and developing the entrepreneurial climate.

“The RI Science and Technology Advisory Council is pleased to partner with the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce to produce this important new evaluation tool,” said Clyde Briant, co-chair of STAC.  “We look forward to continuing to work with the Chamber to collect new data as they become available so that we can measure how the State is trending in these important areas and insure that the initiatives we have in place best leverage scarce financial resources to improve our state’s science and technology driven economy.”

To download the full report, please click here.