Economic Competitiveness: Product Innovation
New firms in and of themselves don't create competitiveness, but they develop new processes and offer new products. One measure of successful new product or process development is the number of patents obtained by area businesses, universities and others.
Patents per 10,000 Employees, 2003
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The Kansas City region produced 3.4 patents per 10,000 employees in 2003, a rate worse than all of its peers other than Omaha. The leaders were Minneapolis and Austin, with rates roughly five and 10 times higher, respectively.
At 5.8 patents per 10,000 employees, St. Louis's patent rate is 71 percent higher than Kansas City's, placing it in the middle the peer group. This likely reflects the larger number of corporate headquarters there as well as the influence of Washington University.
Total Patents, 2003
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MARC by multiplying together the reported patents per employee and total employees for 2003.
Because finding out which innovation will be successful in the marketplace is largely a matter of trial and error, the quantity of innovation matters as well as the rate. The more trials, the better the chance of finding a few that are hugely successful and can generate spinoffs that keep a regional economy growing strongly.
By this measure, Kansas City's performance nearly matches that of Salt Lake but still exceeds only Omaha. The peer group is again led by Minneapolis and Austin, though they switch positions. St. Louis jumps to third place among Kansas City's peers.
Funding for Life Science Research, 1999-2005
Kansas City Area Life Science Institute Stakeholders
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The Kansas City region is working hard to change its innovative capacity. Particularly noteworthy is the multi-billion dollar endowment of Stowers Institute to conduct leading-edge medical research, the state of Kansas' increased level of funding for life science, and the efforts to institutionalize a higher level of life science research through the Kansas City Area Life Science Institute. The stakeholders composing KCALSI have, as a group, increased their level of outside funding over the last six years nearly three times, to a total of $285 million in 2005.
Stakeholders represented in the graph above include Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City University of Medicine and BioSciences, Midwest Research Institute, Saint Luke's Hospital of Kansas City, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, the University of Kansas, KU Medical Center, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Kansas State University and the University of Missouri-Columbia were recently added as stakeholders. If included, the 2005 figure would increase to $533 million.
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