The Tennessee Competitiveness Scorecard and Cluster Profile and the eight regional Competitiveness and Clusters Factbooks were created in support of the Tennessee Leaders Action Platform June 2026 Academy. This research was made possible through the generous support of the John R. Ingram Advised Fund of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee with the objective of providing a data-driven foundation for regional competitiveness upgrading.

Global Action Platform has organized the Tennessee Leaders Action Platform to advance the competitiveness and guide the eight major cluster economies anchored in Tennessee and adjacent states. This content is provided to the Fellows of the Porter Development Initiative Fellows Academy to advance data-driven strategies and decisions for regional development. The Academy gives Tennessee leaders access to cutting-edge ideas, metrics, and practical strategies to create shared prosperity for their communities and supports initiatives that connect creation of globally competitive innovation hubs with education and research, regional collective impact collaboration, and quality of life.

Strategy and Competitiveness Associates has leveraged data from the US Cluster Mapping Project to assemble factbooks customized for each of the eight Tennessee Leaders Action Platform (TLAP) regions. These factbooks are structured around the four major themes for the inaugural TLAP conference to be held in June 2026: Innovation Hub Development, Education and Workforce, Collaborative Governance, and Quality of Life. This work owes much to our long collaboration with Prof. Michael E. Porter at Harvard Business School, especially around his insights on the foundational role of Traded Clusters in regional economic development and on the role of public-private partnerships in support of the quality of regional business environments surrounding clusters and in support of social progress for all citizens.