Detroit Innovation Insights

Three years ago, D3 and Urban Innovation Exchange (UIX) set out to learn more about urban innovators and their impact projects in Detroit.  Since then, we’ve designed a powerful research model to document and map this ecosystem through primary data collection and network analysis.  Our research provides a picture of urban innovation in Detroit and offers important insights into innovators’ social attributes, perceptions of innovation, visions and plans, measures of success and impact, and the support systems and resources they access to start, scale, and sustain their projects.

As we close our third year, we’re excited to be sharing our most important data findings paired with UIX’s recommendations for building this movement in the 3-part, co-authored blog series Detroit Innovation Insights by D3’s Jessica McInchak and UIX’s Claire Nelson.  Access the series and start reading here!

Part 1 introduces the motivating forces that sparked our three-year research initiative; Part 2 explores the research methods we’ve used to track innovation and the data that inform each of our insights; and lastly, Part 3 shares how our findings are being used to generate new strategies for UIX and its allies to best support urban innovators and their work, in Detroit and beyond.

This blog series also follows the release of our fall presentation, found here.