NEWS RELEASE: Oregon Ranks in Top Ten

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JULY 31, 2024

Oregon Ranks in Top Ten in Newest Iteration of Business Oregon’s Innovation Index

Business Oregon released the 2024 Innovation Index, an analysis to better understand how innovative Oregon is compared to other states. This Index identifies areas of strength and weakness within the state’s economy, and areas where Oregon’s competitive advantage is growing or eroding and needs greater investment. This is a biannual publication that was first published in 2004 and is now on its seventh update.

The goal of the Innovation Index is to capture the entrepreneurial and innovative activity across the U.S. Eighteen different metrics were tracked that measured a diversity of economic activity that is largely tied to innovative economies. These 18 metrics can be grouped into three broad categories: commercialization, business environment, and skills/talent.

Oregon has consistently ranked well in the Index, which continued into the 2024 analysis, where Oregon ranked seventh among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The West Coast was strong overall in the index, with Washington and California also within the top seven. These Innovation Index rankings reflect a state’s individual performance in each of the metrics, as well as the rate of change in those metrics over the past 5 years.

Oregon’s high ranking in the overall Innovation Index was due to the state’s strong performance across numerous indicators, including university licenses and start-ups, patents, exports, and high-tech employment. However, the state’s gains slowed in many of these metrics over the past five years resulting in a small drop in Oregon’s overall ranking in the index, as some peer states catch up in certain innovation measures.

The results from the 2024 Innovation Index reveal that Oregon remains competitive among peer states when it comes to factors largely tied to innovative economies. However, slower growth in some of these metrics over the past half decade point towards a need for greater investment in commercialization and continued focus on the state’s business environment for Oregon to maintain its competitiveness.

For more information about the Innovation Index and to read the complete report, visit www.oregon.gov/biz.

Media Contact: Damon Runberg, damon.runberg@biz.oregon.gov