Two national reports ranked New Hampshire in the top 10 nationally in terms of business growth, inventiveness and technological innovation.

The Granite State scored 10th in the annual State Entrepreneurship Index for 2011 released Wednesday by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The state ranked seventh the year before.

The index measures business formation rates — including the number of new business starts-up per capita and the percent growth in business establishments and income of entrepreneurs and gauges technological innovation through the number of patents issued annually per person.

“New Hampshire is consistently among the top 10 entrepreneurial spots in the nation,” said Eric C. Thompson, associate professor of economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who is co-author the report.

New Hampshire, like much of the Northeast, has a strong tradition of creating and inventing its own businesses and industries, Thompson said. This history of entrepreneurial flexibility has enabled New Hampshire and the rest of the New England to adapt to a changing economy, he added.

“It’s fair to say that region of the country traditionally has been excellent at reinventing itself. Forty years ago, there was the loss of the textile industry. The region was very inventive and then came the computer industry. There was a lot of competition there, and now it is reinventing itself in the biotech industry among others,” Thompson said.

Also Wednesday, CNNMoney called New Hampshire one of the 10 most inventive states in the country in terms of number of patents per 1,000 residents in 2011. New Hampshire ranked eighth with 2.44 patents per 1,000 residents.

Vermont came in first, Massachusetts second and California third.

For Jamie Coughlin, chief executive officer of abi Innovation Hub, Wednesday’s reports will bolster his efforts to market New Hampshire as an innovative, technologically-driven business mecca similar to Cambridge, Mass., and California’s Silicon Valley. The nonprofit agency supports high-tech start-ups throughout New Hampshire.

“This is just wonderful to see. ... New Hampshire has always been a traditional, small business-type of state. But now to be on the forefront of the technological and innovation-kind of driven states is very important,” Coughlin said.

One reason for New Hampshire’s slip from seventh to 10th place on the Entrepreneurship Index this year was a slight dip in the number of new starts-up and an increase in the number of companies that went out of business in 2011, Thompson said.

The studies came as no surprise to Michael Bergeron, who is business development manager with the state Division of Economic Development.

“New Hampshire has always had a consistent trend of attracting well-educated, creative entrepreneurs, and they come to New Hampshire because it has a lot of the things people are looking for,” such as quality health care and education and a low-cost business environment.

Dover economic analyst Brian J. Gottlob said the studies pinpoint the core strength of the New Hampshire economy — its increasing”ability to do the higher end kind of activities in business, the design, the research and development. That is the kind of work that isn’t easily shipped to another country or done elsewhere,” said Gottlob, principal of PolEcon Research in Dover.

“That really is a core and...a key, in a lot of ways, to our future,” he added.

Gottlob was one of three panelists at last month’s annual Economic Forecast forum who warned that lagging private sector job growth and slower population growth posed challenges to the state.

Gottlob said those predictions and Wednesday’s studies are “not inconsistent.” He noted the future health of state’s high-tech, innovative economy hinges on its ability to attract and retain highly educated, skilled workers who, since the recession hit five years ago, have not moved to the state in as great numbers as before.

“Where those skilled, well-educated people live, that’s where those innovative companies are going to want to locate,” Gottlob said.

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Kathryn Marchocki may be reached at kmarchocki@unionleader.com.