Texas again improves on annual ranking of most innovative states

making progress

Texas continued its year-over-year improvement on an annual report of most innovative states. Photo via Getty Images

It's another year of slow but steady progress for the Lone Star State on an annual report on the top states for innovation.

Texas ranked No. 14 with a score of 48.43 points on personal finance site WalletHub's Most and Least Innovative States in 2024 ranking. Last year, Texas ranked No. 15. The state has steadily inched up the list — Texas was No.16 on the list in 2022 and No. 17 in 2021.

According to the report, Texas had the following ranking across the following categories:

No. 19 – Share of STEM Professionals
No. 16 – Projected STEM-Job Demand by 2030
No. 25 – Eighth-Grade Math & Science Performance
No. 19 – Share of Science & Engineering Graduates Aged 25+
No. 13 – Share of Technology Companies
No. 31 – R&D Spending per Capita
No. 15 – Venture-Capital Funding per Capita

Source: WalletHub

The report analyzed the 50 states and the District of Columbia and how each performed across 25 key metrics and across two key dimensions, “Human Capital” and “Innovation Environment," per the report. The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics, United States Patent and Trademark Office, and other records.

“The most innovative states are especially attractive to people who have majored in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, as they offer abundant career opportunities and investment dollars, both for jobs at existing companies and for startups," says Cassandra Happe, a WalletHub analyst in the report. "These states also instill young students with the skills they need to succeed in the current workforce, skills which are useful whether or not they pursue a STEM career.”

The report's top 10 included:

District of Columbia with a score of 71.65
Massachusetts with a score of 69.93
Washington with a score of 66.36
California with a score of 65.63
Colorado with a score of 63.93
Maryland with a score of 62.41
Virginia with a score of 59.86
Delaware with a score of 54.58
Utah with a score of 53.66
New Jersey with a score of 53.2

Texas has seen year-over-year improvement on an annual list that ranks states based on their innovation economies. Photo via Getty Images

Report: Texas rises through the ranks of most innovative states

moving on up

The Lone Star State has again taken a step up on an annual report that ranks the most and least innovative states in the country — this time cracking the top 15.

Texas ranked No. 15 in personal finance site WalletHub's 2023’s Most and Least Innovative States ranking. It's a steady improvement for the state, which ranked No. 16 in 2022 and No. 17 in 2021.

The report analyzed the 50 states and the District of Columbia and how each performed across 22 key metrics, including population of STEM professionals, venture capital investment activity, number of technology companies, patents per capita, and more. The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics, United States Patent and Trademark Office, and other records.

Here's how Texas performed at a glance:

No. 18 for share of STEM professionals
No. 16 for projected STEM job demand by 2030
No. 25 for eighth grade math and science performance
No. 21 – for share of science and engineering graduates aged 25 or older
No. 13 – for share of technology companies
No. 31 – for R&D spending per capita
No. 18 – venture capital funding per capita

For the 11th year, Texas won Site Selection Magazine's Governor's Cup, the governor's office announced earlier this year. The award, which Texas has won 19 times since its inception in 1978, recognizes the nation’s top-performing state for job-creating business relocations and expansions.

"Texas truly is America’s economic engine, and we stand apart as a model for the nation. When choosing where to relocate or expand their businesses, more and more innovative industry leaders find themselves at home in our state," Governor Greg Abbott says in a news release about the award.

"I congratulate the exceptional economic development teams at the local, regional, and state level who have worked so diligently to attract and retain these growing businesses and the jobs they create in diverse communities across this great state," he continues.

The most innovative states included the District of Columbia, which ranked at No. 1, followed by Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, and California, respectively. The least innovative state was identified as Mississippi, followed by Louisiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Arkansas, respectively.

Source: WalletHub

Access to quality education is a significant contributor to each state's innovation economy, the experts say in the report.

"Investing in education, particularly K-12 but also at the University level, it is no accident that innovative ecosystems develop in states with strong education systems and research universities," says David L. Deeds, professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. "These institutions build strong capable modern workforces that attract capital, and jobs and create innovations. The benefits do not happen overnight, in fact, they take years if not decades, but consider what The UC’s or the University of Texas at Austin have meant for the development of premier innovative ecosystems."

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston AI data firm partners on Alzheimer’s clinical trial

now testing

Houston data science firm OmniScience announced this month that it has partnered with Florida-based INmune Bio (NASDAQ: INMB) on a global Phase 2 Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial.

The trial, known as ADO2, will utilize OmniScience's recently developed product, Vivo, which uses generative AI to centralize and analyze clinical trial data in real time, according to a release. The two companies also partnered during Vivo’s development and recent roll-out.

"OmniScience and INmune Bio share a vision to transform how clinical trial teams engage with data – transforming data into knowledge in real time and informing decisions that increase the probability of success,” Angela Holmes, CEO of OmniScience, says in a statement. “As our partnership moves forward, we’re gaining further insights from the INmune team that we can integrate into Vivo’s roadmap. We look forward to our continued mutual success.”

The ADO2 trial will investigate INmune Bio's clinical-stage biotechnology XPro in patients with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease with brain inflammation, according to its website. Its products are focused on "restoring function in the body's innate immune system to fight disease."

The trial is overenrolled with 208 patients diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment. The top-line results are expected to be released in Q2 2025.

"A global trial of this size is vast, and Vivo will be critical in our ability to analyze cognitive results,” Tara Lehner, INmune Bio’s vice president of clinical operations, says in the statement. “With genAI provided by Vivo, we can amplify our clinical teams’ capabilities, turning complex data into actionable insights at unprecedented speed, which means we can get answers—and treatments—to patients faster.”

INmune will be able to use OmniScience's Vivo product to unify data from electronic data capture, clinical trial management systems, patient-reported outcomes, clinical outcome assessments, labs, wearables, safety databases and more, according to the statement. The product has been shown to improve data quality and visualizations and reduce the reliance on spreadsheet-based data analysis during clinical trials.

Omniscience was originally founded in 2017, then known as Mercury Data Science. It rebranded and changed its name earlier this year. Holmes was named CEO in 2022.

Omniscience's Vivo product recently won first place in the CNS Summit 2024 Innovation Showcase in Boston and the Blue Whale Ribbon at the inaugural Whale Tank pitch competition during the 2024 Innovation Network Gathering (ING) in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

By the numbers: Houston rankings dominate top lifestyle stories for 2024

year in review

Editor's note: As the year comes to a close, InnovationMap is looking back at the year's top stories in Houston innovation. In the lifestyle category on InnovationMap, report-driven stories related to life in Houston dominated this section on InnovationMap in 2024. Be sure to click through to read the full story.

Houston dazzles as most diverse large city in U.S., report says

Houston is the No. 4 most diverse city in the U.S. Photo via Getty Images

Living in a multicultural city comes with many benefits. Diverse communities bring new perspectives, greater versatility, and economic boosts, to name a few. And according to a new study by WalletHub, Houston is among the most diverse places in the nation.

Houston is getting some time in the spotlight in WalletHub's annual ranking of the "Most Diverse Cities in the U.S. (2024)," maintaining its position as the No. 1 most diverse large city in America, and the No. 4 overall most diverse. The report compared 501 U.S. cities across 13 metrics in five categories that encompass "diversity" across socioeconomic, cultural, economic, household, and religious factors. Continue reading.

Texas flunks out in new ranking of America's best school systems

Texas has the 29th best public school system in the U.S., according to WalletHub. Photo via Pexels

Texans may think everything here is bigger and better, but the Lone Star State has fallen behind many other states in America when it comes to ensuring the academic success of its children, according to a new report by personal finance website WalletHub.

Texas landed a middling rank as No. 29 in WalletHub's annual "States with the Best and Worst School Systems (2024)" report, earning a score of 49.86 out of 100 total possible points. Continue reading.

Booming Houston suburb, other Texas towns among the fastest-growing U.S. cities in 2023

Here's how Texas towns stacked up on a new population report. Photo via Getty Images

One Houston suburb experienced one of the most rapid growth spurts in the country last year: Fulshear, whose population grew by 25.6 percent, more than 51 times that of the nation’s growth rate of 0.5 percent. The city's population was 42,616 as of July 1, 2023.

According to U.S. Census Bureau's Vintage 2023 Population Estimates, released Thursday, May 16, Fulshear — which lies west of Katy in northwest Fort Bend County - ranked No. 2 on the list of fastest-growing cities with a population of 20,000 or more. It's no wonder iconic Houston restaurants like Molina's Cantina see opportunities there. Continue reading.

Here's how much it takes to earn a top 1 percent salary in Texas

Texans now need to make $130,241 more in 2024 to maintain their status as one of the highest earners in the state. Photo via Getty Images

With two Houston-area neighbors cashing in among the most wealthy suburbs in America, Houstonians may be wondering how much money they need to make to secure a place in the top one percent of earners. According to a new study from SmartAsset, the pre-tax salary required to be considered one of the highest earners in Texas amounts to $762,090 in 2024.

Texas has the 14th highest pre-tax salary needed to be considered in the top one percent of earners in the U.S. for the second year in a row. Texas' income threshold is not too far off from the national average, which is $787,712. Continue reading.

Report: Houstonians need $12K more to live comfortably than they did last year

It's not all bad for the Bayou City, but if you're making the same as last year, you're probably feeling the pinch. Photo via Getty Images

As inflation and the cost of living rise in most places around the United States, so does the amount of money a resident needs to live comfortably. But Houstonians are faring far better than residents of some of the biggest cities in America.

Houston requires the lowest salary needed to live comfortably in 2024, according to a new SmartAsset report. Specifically, they say, Houston ranks No. 1 for "the lowest annual salary needed for a single adult to live in sustainable comfort using the 50/30/20 budgeting rule" — that is, 50 percent of a salary allocated toward needs (housing, groceries, transportation); 30 percent toward wants (entertainment and hobbies); and 20 percent toward paying off debt, saving, or investing.

Houstonians need to make $75,088 individually to lead a comfortable lifestyle and avoid living paycheck to paycheck, or a $36.10 hourly wage, says the report, which analyzed 99 major U.S. cities. Continue reading.

Houston researchers develop catalyst for emission-free hydrogen production using light instead of heat

SWITCH FLIPPED

Researchers at Rice University have developed a catalyst that could render steam methane reforming, or SMR, entirely emission-free by using light rather than heat to drive the reaction.

The researchers believe the work could prove to be a breakthrough for extending catalyst lifetimes. This will improve efficiencies and reduce costs for a number of industrial processes that are affected by a form of carbon buildup that can deactivate catalysts called coking.

The new copper-rhodium photocatalyst uses an antenna-reactor design. When it is exposed to a specific wavelength of light it breaks down methane and water vapor without external heating into hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The importance of this is it is a chemical industry feedstock that is not a greenhouse gas. Rice’s work also shows that the antenna-reactor technology can overcome catalyst deactivation due to oxidation and coking by employing hot carriers to remove oxygen species and carbon deposits, which effectively regenerates the catalyst with light.

The new SMR reaction pathway build off a 2011 discovery from Peter Nordlander, Rice’s Wiess Chair and Professor of Physics and Astronomy and professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering, and Naomi Halas. They are the authors on the study about the research that was published in Nature Catalysis. The study showed that the collective oscillations of electrons that occur when metal nanoparticles are exposed to light can emit “hot carriers” or high-energy electrons and holes that can be used to drive chemical reactions.

“This is one of our most impactful findings so far, because it offers an improved alternative to what is arguably the most important chemical reaction for modern society,” Norlander says in a news release.

The research was supported by Robert A. Welch Foundation (C-1220, C-1222) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-15-1-0022) with the Shared Equipment Authority at Rice providing data analysis support.

“This research showcases the potential for innovative photochemistry to reshape critical industrial processes, moving us closer to an environmentally sustainable energy future,” Halas adds.

Hydrogen has been studied as it could assist with the transition to a sustainable energy ecosystem, but the chemical process responsible for more than half of the current global hydrogen production is a substantial source of greenhouse gas emissions.Hydrogen is produced in large facilities that require the gas to be transported to its point of use. Light-driven SMR allows for on-demand hydrogen generation,which researchers believe is a key benefit for use in mobility-related applications like hydrogen fueling stations or and possibly vehicles.

------

This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

View All Listings

INNOVATIONMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME