Innovation Ecosystem Glossary

The LINK framework was developed by The Groundbreakers to bring structure to a question most economic development professionals struggle with: "How healthy is our innovation ecosystem, and what should we prioritize?"

It synthesizes corporate strategy theory, Economic Complexity research pioneered at Harvard and MIT, and practitioner insights from 50+ interviews with innovation ecosystem CEOs.

The result is a structured diagnostic model that identifies where an ecosystem is working, where it's breaking down, and what to do about it — producing actionable recommendations grounded in research rather than generic best practices.

Every diagnostic question, score, and recommendation in Ecosystem Navigator is derived from this framework — not from generic AI prompts.

The Virtuous Innovation Cycle (VIC) traces the journey that innovation takes through a regional ecosystem: from knowledge production and foundational R&D, through entrepreneurial activity and commercialization, to market growth and reinvestment.

When the cycle works well, research generates startups, startups attract capital, capital funds growth, growth generates wealth, and wealth gets reinvested into the next round of research and talent. That's the "virtuous" cycle.

When the cycle breaks — talent leaves, capital doesn't reinvest locally, or research never reaches the market — you get stuck. The VIC diagnosis pinpoints exactly which phase is underperforming and why.

Ecosystem Navigator scores each phase of the VIC and highlights where the cycle is flowing and where it's blocked, giving you a clear map of what to fix first.

Economic complexity is a concept pioneered by researchers at Harvard (Ricardo Hausmann) and MIT (César Hidalgo). It measures how many different types of sophisticated products and services a region can produce.

The insight is simple: regions that can make many different, hard-to-copy things tend to grow faster and be more resilient. A region that only exports raw materials is less complex (and more vulnerable) than one that also produces specialized software, advanced manufacturing, and biotech.

For economic development professionals, economic complexity answers a critical question: "Are we building the capabilities we need to compete in 10 years, or are we stuck with what we have?"

Ecosystem Navigator incorporates economic complexity research into its analysis — evaluating whether your region's innovation ecosystem is positioned to build new capabilities or is at risk of falling behind.

An innovation asset map plots the key organizations in your region's innovation ecosystem on a map. This includes universities, research parks, incubators, accelerators, venture capital firms, angel networks, economic development agencies, federal labs, and industry associations.

Most regions don't have a single, up-to-date view of their innovation assets. Economic development professionals often rely on tribal knowledge or outdated databases.

Ecosystem Navigator generates an innovation asset map automatically for every diagnostic report. When you enter your city, the system researches your region's actual institutions and plots them — so you can see what you have, where the clusters are, and what might be missing.

The asset map is one of the most-shared components of the diagnostic report, giving stakeholders an immediate visual understanding of the ecosystem's landscape.

A regional innovation scorecard quantifies the strengths and gaps across the dimensions that drive ecosystem performance. Rather than a single "innovation index," it breaks the assessment into meaningful, actionable categories.

Ecosystem Navigator scores your region across 35 sub-dimensions organized by the LINK framework's five strategic areas. Each dimension gets a score on a 5-point scale, with context about what the score means and what to do about it.

The scorecard lets you compare dimensions side by side — is your talent pipeline stronger than your capital access? Is infrastructure ahead of knowledge flows? These relative comparisons drive prioritization.

Free reports show scores across all 12 top-level dimensions. Pro users get detailed sub-dimension breakdowns with full narrative insights and recommended actions.

An innovation ecosystem diagnostic goes beyond generic surveys or rankings. It evaluates the interactions between institutions — how well universities, government, industry, and capital providers work together to move ideas from lab to market.

Traditional approaches to ecosystem assessment often involve expensive consultants, months of interviews, and reports that sit on shelves. Ecosystem Navigator compresses this into a 5-minute, framework-driven process that produces actionable output.

The diagnostic is built on the LINK framework and produces a structured report that includes an executive summary, VIC cycle analysis, innovation asset map, ecosystem scorecard, and a prioritized action plan backed by research citations.

It's designed for the people who actually make decisions about economic development: EDOs, local government leaders, university administrators, and innovation organization executives.