About the Report

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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 and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership; U.S. Small Business Administration; and U.S. Department of Energy. ETA funded an evaluation of the JIAC and AM-JIAC grants.

The report presents findings on seven research topics: 1) multi-agency collaboration at the Federal and cluster level; 2) cluster history, leadership and management; 3) cluster partnerships; 4) activities; 5) workforce-related outcomes; 6) sustainability and replication; and 7) lessons learned. This report relies on data from grant documents across all 30 clusters, telephone interviews with Federal agency representatives, two-day site visits to nine grant-funded clusters, lists of funded and unfunded partners across the 30 clusters, and a survey of a subset of those cluster partners.

Research Questions

• What is the role of multi-agency collaboration both at the Federal level and within the clusters in the planning and implementation of cluster activities?
• What is the history of the cluster and what is the cluster structure in terms of its leadership? How is the JIAC and AM-JIAC initiative managed within each cluster?
• Who are the cluster partners, and how do the partners work together to complement each other’s grant activities?
• What activities are funded and delivered under the JIAC and AM-JIAC initiatives?
• What workforce-related outcomes do the clusters report achieving?
• What practices are being implemented to promote sustainability of grant resources, partnerships, and activities? How and under what circumstances might these initiatives be replicated?
• What are the key lessons learned through implementation?

Key Takeaways

• Federal respondents indicated that, although challenging, development of the single Federal Funding Opportunity through which each agency could award its own grants to selected clusters was a successful collaborative effort.
• To prepare a skilled workforce in target sectors, ETA-funded organizations most often provided job placement assistance, basic skills or job readiness training, academic education and incumbent worker training.
• As of September 2016, JIAC and AM-JIAC had served about 7,600 ETA participants yielding the following results: Over three quarters completed training, and, of those, over 90% received a credential; among the completers not employed at enrollment, 80% of JIAC and 64% of AM-JIAC participants got an unsubsidized job in the quarter after exit (of those, 63% of JIAC and 41% of AM-JIAC participants retained a job in the second and third quarters after exit); and among the completers employed at enrollment, 58% of JIAC and 52% of AM-JIAC participants retained their job and over 15% advanced in their career.

Research Gaps

• Consider additional data collection on job quality, consider ways to incentivize cluster engagement of diverse populations, examine sustainability during and after grant conclusion, consider strategies to capture the collective impact of multi-agency collaboration in the regions. (page 71)

Citation

Hague Angus, M., Bellotti, J., English, B., Boraas, S., Hollenbeck, K., Osborn, S. (2017). Mathematica. Regional Collaboration to Create a High-Skilled Workforce: Evaluation of the Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge Grants. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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This study was sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy Development and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation, and was produced outside of CEO’s standard research development process.