The article examines how different regions in the Southern USA are doing in terms of innovation. Researchers looked at various measures to see how well these regions are innovating and found that there are different levels of innovation happening across the states. They identified trends in the development of these innovation systems and found that there is a mix of both integration and differentiation among them. By analyzing data from 2015 to 2019, they created a classification system for these regions based on their innovation levels, showing that there is a diverse range of innovation happening in the Southern states.