Survey ranks Virginia as seventh most innovative state

Published March 18, 2019 by Robert Powell, III

A new survey ranks Virginia as the seventh most innovative state in the nation.

The ranking was made by the personal-finance website WalletHub in its report on “2019’s Most & Least Innovative States” as well as accompanying videos.

WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 24 key metrics. The data range from share of STEM professionals to R&D spending per capita.

Virginia ranked first for projected STEM-job demand by 2020, second for share of technology companies, fifth for share of STEM professionals and eighth for share of science and engineering graduates aged 25+.

The commonwealth also ranked tenth in two other categories: eighth-grade math and science performance and venture-capital funding per capita.

Massachusetts ranked as the most innovative. It was followed in the top 10 by Washington state, the District of Columbia, Maryland Colorado, California, Virginia, Utah, Delaware and Oregon.

Among other neighboring states: North Carolina ranked 21st; Kentucky, 44th; Tennessee, 47th; and West Virginia, 49th.

The lowest ranking state on the list was Mississippi.