A new report from the Brookings Institution suggests Pittsburgh could recreate its heyday of steel, where it was an industry leader, around its current industries of tech and life sciences. But it will require a concerted effort across numerous sectors for the region to realize its potential as a global innovation city.

The city’s Oakland neighborhood has all the pieces to be a central innovation district, the report’s authors found, but needs a strategy to connect its capacity with the larger regional economy.

The report by the Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking at Brookings was presented to an audience of local officials and business leaders at a conference in Pittsburgh last week. It was funded by the Heinz Endowments and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, and took researchers about 18 months to prepare.

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