The Southern Growth Policies Board has released a new report, Innovation with a Southern Accent (PDF).
The report, released at the Southern Innovation Summit in New Orleans, focuses on creating a Southern culture of knowledge, where learning and innovation are primary social values, and essential to the region’s global competitiveness.
The report’s recommendations include strategies for building the innovation capacity in the South through the creation, accumulation and application of knowledge.
The report presents the Southern Innovation System (SIS) as a mechanism for individuals, communities, states, and the South to support and cultivate innovation and outlines several regional initiatives to grow emerging industries in the South, including the Southern Nanotechnology Initiative, VentureSouth, the Southern task force on venture capital, and the Southern Information Technology Initiative, among others.
Innovation with a Southern Accent includes regional and state-level data on educational attainment, venture capital, an overview of state policies on R&D including survey results about the South’s attractiveness for R&D, and profiles of innovative programs.
Southern Growth has produced an accompanying video that captures the thoughts and opinions of a cross-section of Southerners who took part in community forums to discuss the economic potential of innovation and technology. The video is representative of the more than 4,000 Southerners whose feedback helped shape the 2006 Report on the Future of the South.
Both the report and the video can be ordered by downloading a publication order form (PDF).