America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Via AILA
01/10/2007

A new study from Duke University indicates that immigrant entrepreneurs founded 25.3 percent of the U.S. engineering and technology companies established in the past decade. Furthermore, foreign nationals contributed to an estimated 24.2 percent of international patent applications in 2006.

The goal of this research was to document the economic and intellectual contributions of immigrant technologists and engineers at the national level. To understand the economic impact, the study looked at a large sample of all engineering and technology companies founded in the last ten years to determine whether a key founder was an immigrant. To understand the intellectual contribution, they analyzed the World Intellectual Property Organization Patent Cooperation Treaty database for international patent applications filed in the United States.

See the full report at: http://memp.pratt.duke.edu/downloads/americas_new_immigrant_entrepreneurs.pdf