forward thinking

Texas lands inside top 15 in new ranking of most innovative states

Texas is chugging along as an innovative state.

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

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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:

No. 1 – District of Columbia with a score of 71.65
No. 2 – Massachusetts with a score of 69.93
No. 3 – Washington with a score of 66.36
No. 4 – California with a score of 65.63
No. 5 – Colorado with a score of 63.93
No. 6 – Maryland with a score of 62.41
No. 7 – Virginia with a score of 59.86
No. 8 – Delaware with a score of 54.58
No. 9 – Utah with a score of 53.66
No. 10 – New Jersey with a score of 53.2

This report originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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State of innovation

Texas deemed No. 1 state for economic development in new report

Photo courtesy of Dallas CVB

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Texas is on a 14-year winning streak as the top state for attracting job-creating business location and expansion projects.

Once again, Texas has claimed Site Selection magazine’s Governor’s Cup. This year’s honor recognizes the state with the highest number of economic development projects in 2025. Texas landed more than 1,400 projects last year.

Ron Starner, executive vice president of Site Selection, calls Texas “a dynasty in economic development.”

Among metro areas, Dallas-Fort Worth lands at No. 3 for the most economic development projects secured last year behind No. 2 Houston and No. 1 Chicago.

In 2025, Fortune ranked Texas as the U.S. state with the second-highest number of Fortune 500 headquarters (54), preceded by California (58) and followed by New York (53).

Texas retained the Governor’s Cup by gaining over 1,400 business location and expansion projects last year, representing more than $75 billion in capital investments and producing more than 42,000 new jobs.

Site Selection says Texas’ project count for 2025 handily beat second-place Illinois (680 projects) and third-place Ohio (467 projects). Texas’ number for 2025 represented 18 percent of all qualifying U.S. projects tracked by Site Selection.

“You can see that we are on a trajectory to ensure our economic diversification is going to inoculate us in good times, as well as bad times, to ensure our economy is still going to grow, still create new jobs, prosperity, and opportunities for Texans going forward,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.

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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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