America’s regions face new challenges from their competitors around the world. Competing in the global economy requires creating regional innovation ecosystems that drive growth and prosperity. The challenge is to optimize their assets—human, capital, institutional and intangible—around the innovation imperative.

Many regions have yet to fully understand the competitive value of the asset base. Only a few have implemented a systematic process to identify their innovation assets or developed strategies to ensure that these assets are sufficiently linked and leveraged.

Asset Mapping Roadmap: A Guide to Assessing Regional Development Resources is our newest tool designed to help regional leaders support innovation-based growth. Developed with the support of the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the U.S. Department of Labor, this guide is focused on helping regions build strategies that align education, workforce development and economic development programs.

Under the ETA’s Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) initiative, 39 regions across the U.S. have launched efforts to build integrated, innovation-based development strategies. As we have come to understand at the Council, our national prosperity depends upon regional innovation. We hope that this guide contributes to the efforts of leaders who are addressing this innovation imperative in communities across this country.