In January, the Boulder Economic Council published the Boulder Innovation Venture 2.0 report comparing Boulder’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem to other major centers of innovation throughout the U.S. Using a groundbreaking methodology developed in collaboration with CU Boulder’s Business Research Division, the report presents an easy-to-read comparison of the performance of 14 different regional ecosystems measured relative to each other.
The Boulder Innovation Venture 2.0 report was published just before the global magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic became clear. It quickly became obvious that the data and analysis in the report is especially meaningful in tracking the economic impacts of COVID-19 over time. As a benchmarking tool, the methodology will provide insights into mitigating the impacts of the pandemic, expediting economic recovery, and helping communities better understand how to plan for resiliency against future crisis disruptions.
The Boulder Innovation Venture 2.0 report and methodology have been presented by invitation to economic development professionals at recent conferences of the International Economic Development Council, the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation ESHIP Summit, and a number of state, regional and local conferences.
Publication of the Boulder Innovation Venture 2.0 report achieved several goals:
A methodology was developed to enable meaningful comparisons between communities regardless of size. Other studies of innovation communities focus almost entirely on the largest regions in the U.S., overlooking the contributions of medium-sized and smaller regions.
The project successfully achieved the goal of quantifying innovation and entrepreneurship in metro areas, which can be difficult to measure.
It provides a transparent, replicable methodology that other communities can adapt as a framework for measuring the vitality of their own ecosystems.
It documents quantitatively Boulder’s position as a high-performing innovation region relative to both larger national hubs and peer regions.