R.I. falls to 15th in national tech ranking

RHODE ISLAND SLIPPED TO 15th on the nonprofit Milken Institute's State Technology and Science Index 2016. The last time the study was done two years ago, the Ocean State ranked 13th. / COURTESY MILEN INSTITUTE
RHODE ISLAND SLIPPED TO 15th on the nonprofit Milken Institute's State Technology and Science Index 2016. The last time the study was done two years ago, the Ocean State ranked 13th. / COURTESY MILEN INSTITUTE

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island ranked 15th on the State Technology and Science Index, dropping two spots from the last time the study was done.
Created by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Milken Institute, the index, which was released this week, tracks and evaluates every state’s tech and science capabilities and their success at converting those assets into companies and high-paying jobs.
Conducted every two years, Massachusetts has scored first in every edition of the index since it was launched in 2002.
After Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland, California and Washington round out the top five.
More than 100 indicators are evaluated to come up with the rankings. In addition to the overall ranking, states are evaluated in five categories: human capital investment, risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, research and development inputs, technology concentration and dynamism, and technology and science workforce.
The Ocean State ranked highest in human capital investment, or how much is invested in developing the workforce, coming in eighth. It ranked 10th in research and development inputs, which examined if states have the facilities that attract funding and create innovations that could be commercialized and contribute to economic growth. Rhode Island’s lowest rank was 28th in risk capital, which determined the success rate of converting research into commercially viable products and services.

“Innovative activities are determining an increasing proportion of the long-term economic growth differential between states,” Ross DeVol, chief research officer and a co-author of the report, said in a statement. “Sustaining these activities at an elevated rate requires a robust research capacity or ability to create new knowledge that has potential commercial applicability.”

Rhode Island’s best rank on the index was in 2008 when it was 10th overall.

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  1. This is what happens when you have an incompetent Yalie who cannot run the state-she’s wrong in every revenue estimate projection; every iissue she touches collapses and the compulsive liar in chief rewards only those who helped her win the election. She’s had a 6 year test (4 yrs as treasurer and she screwed up the pensionmaking it lose a million dollars a day) and she’s screwed up and botched everything from the opening of the new I-way bridge to the DMV computers to the tourism and state slogan debacle to truck tolls to the new UHIP social services platform debaclw where arrogant raimondo did not listen to the feds who told her not to use it yet! So it is not surprising RI lost ranking in 2 yrs-since she’s been in office as Governor! lmao!