Washington State Drops In Key Science and Technology Ranking

Washington state dropped to sixth place last year from 5^th place in the Milken Institutes 2010 State Technology and Science Index. The index has been updated every other year since 2002. Utah passed Washington, moving up to 5^th place from 8^th place in 2008. The index tracks and evaluates every states tech and science capabilities and its success at converting those assets into companies and high-paying jobs.

Among the factors that dragged down Washingtons performance last year:

• A relatively poor performance on the number of companies receiving VC investments. (29^th in the country)
• Low IPO proceeds as a percent of gross state product. (34^th)
• Concentration and momentum in science and engineering fields. (We dropped from 16^th nationwide in 2008 to 22^nd in 2010). We were 44^th in state appropriations for higher education, 46^th in percentage of graduate students in science, engineering and health and 44^th in recent masters degrees in science and engineering per 1000 civilian workers. Our average math and verbal SAT scores ranked 25^th in the country.

Where we did better:

• Ability to attract federal, industry and academic funding for research. (We climbed from 8^th in 2008 to 6^th in 2010.)
• Technology concentration and dynamism: We climbed from 8^th in 2008 to 3^rd in 2010.