Key Issues: Science and Innovation

The Bay Area is the nation’s and the world’s pre-eminent knowledge-based economy. Almost two-thirds of its workforce is engaged in knowledge-related positions, and more of its immigrants are engaged in knowledge-based professions than in any other region. The percentage of computer, mathematics and engineering jobs in the Bay Area is twice the national average. One in six residents holds a graduate or professional degree. These knowledge workers are distributed through a wide range of sectors, going well beyond what are commonly understood as technology-related industries.

The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area generates double the number of patents per 10,000 employees (16) compared to the national average (7.7), while the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metropolitan area generated nearly ten times the national average (72.8).

The Bay Area benefits from the nation’s largest concentration of basic and applied research facilities: five leading research universities, five national laboratories, and numerous private and independent research laboratories and organizations. These institutions are a magnet for research investment and human capital, and are central to the region’s track record of successful innovation. Researchers at Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley and the University of California at San Francisco alone have won 54 Nobel Prizes.

A major destination for foreign direct investment, the Bay Area also has the nation’s highest concentration of foreign-owned R&D facilities—more than any other region or state.

• Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium (BASIC)
  
  A partnership of national laboratories, research universities, private and independent laboratories and community organizations, the Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium (BASIC) is managed by the Bay Area Economic Forum. BASIC supports the Bay Area’s scientific and research infrastructure, and its vitality as a cornerstone of the region’s technology-led economy.
• The Innovation Edge:
  Meeting the Global Competitive Challenge
  —September 2006 (PDF: 66 pages, 1 MB)*
  
  Innovation is increasingly the currency of international competitiveness as nations, states and regions worldwide increase their investment in education, R&D and manufacturing capacity. Successful innovation is the product of many forces: investment in scientific research; investment in education; the interaction of scientists across disciplines and of technologists with entrepreneurs; and a flexible, entrepreneurial culture. An analysis by the Bay Area Economic Forum, The Innovation Edge: Meeting the Global Competitive Challenge, assesses the nature of the new global challenge and the measures needed at the federal, state and regional levels to ensure our future competitiveness.

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