In an effort to spur regional economic growth, five Federal agencies collaborated to award grants in 2011 and 2012 to 30 self-identified regional innovation clusters focused on specific high-growth sectors through the Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge (JIAC) and Advanced Manufacturing JIAC (AM-JIAC) initiatives. Participating agencies included the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA); U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration; U.S. Small Business Administration; U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership; and U.S. Department of Energy. In August 2013, ETA contracted with Mathematica Policy Research and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research to conduct an evaluation of the JIAC and AM-JIAC grants.

The final evaluation report presents findings on seven research topics: multi-agency collaboration at the Federal and cluster level; cluster history, leadership and management; cluster partnerships; activities; workforce-related outcomes; sustainability and replication; and the lessons learned. The report relies on data from grant documents across all 30 clusters, telephone interviews with Federal agency representatives, two-day site visits to nine clusters, lists of funded and unfunded partners across the 30 clusters, and a survey of a subset of those cluster partners.