Requires the director to designate innovation partnership zones on the basis of the following criteria: (1) Innovation partnership zones must have three types of institutions operating within their boundaries, or show evidence of planning and local partnerships that will lead to dense concentrations of these institutions: (a) research capacity in the form of a university or community college fostering commercially valuable research, or a national laboratory; (b) dense proximity of globally competitive firms in a research-based industry or industries. A globally competitive firm may be signified through international organization for standardization 9000 or 1400 certification, or other recognized evidence of international success; and (c) training capacity either within the zone or readily accessible to the zone. The training capacity requirement may be met by the same institution as the research capacity requirement, to the extent both are associated with an educational institution in the proposed zone.

Requires the department to convene annual information sharing events for innovation partnership zone administrators and other interested parties.

Requires an innovation partnership zone to provide performance measures as required by the director, including but not limited to private investment measures, job creation measures, and measures of innovation such as licensing of ideas in research institutions, patents, or other recognized measures of innovation.