IRIS | Institute for Research on Innovation and Science

...a national consortium of research universities organized around an IRB-approved data repository. IRIS develops data for research and reporting to understand, explain and improve the public value of higher education.

IRIS is...
• Fiscal 2015 IRIS data demonstrate that federal sponsored projects at 23 research universities employed more than 100,000 people, 43% of whom were students.

• IRIS institutions spent more than $2.2 billion to purchase goods and services from vendors located in 1778 U.S. counties and all 435 U.S. Congressional Districts.

• Links to Census Bureau economic data document the career destinations of more than 100,000 people who worked on federal grants and then took jobs with other employers. 43% of those people remained in the state where they were trained.

• Three years after departing their universities 62% of graduate students worked in the private sector where they made an average of $91,820.

Did You Know?
IRIS Membership

See Who Belongs
IRIS data are useful for answering myriad questions about the social and
economic effects of research investments. Examples of possible topics include:

• the scientific production function
• the career outcomes and earnings of doctoral students and trainees
• questions pertaining to science and engineering workforce and the STEM pipeline
• entrepreneurial outcomes and human capital
• the economic effects of research related to food safety
• the relationship between research funding and subsequent entrepreneurship
• and many more topics

Research Using IRIS Data

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Campus-level reports constructed from an individual university’s data provide
resources for use in research reports, as well as presentations to the
public and other stakeholders. In addition, routine reports from IRIS data
improve administrators’ knowledge about the size and composition of the
research workforce on campus, the portfolio of federally funded research, and
the distribution of people supported by different funders.

Reports and Products

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UNIVERSITIES

Provide and Use the Data

IRIS provides member institutions with university-specific reports based on their data, highlighting the impacts of their research efforts and investments.

Membership

RESEARCHERS

Refine the Data

IRIS creates a secure data enclave for the research community by collecting, integrating, warehousing, and making large-scale data accessible to researchers.

Details

POLICY MAKERS

Leverage the Data

IRIS provides policy makers with credible data on the value of research to address pressing social science and policy questions.

Products

“This groundbreaking project will allow research universities to better track and report the outcomes of many dimensions of the academic enterprise. Perhaps most importantly, the effort will apply the protocols and rigor of academic research to the work and outcomes of higher education—and will do so in a manner consistent with the values of the academic (not commercial) sector.”

—BARBARA MCFADDEN ALLEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BIG TEN ACADEMIC ALLIANCE

“IRIS data allow observational experiments that can directly test this people-centric model by tracking how scientific training affects career trajectories and returns to industry. Preliminary IRIS data indicate, for example, that a science doctorate improves a person’s chances of entering a high-tech industry, which will result in higher wages and greater productivity.”

—MICHAEL EINSTEIN, “ASSESSMENT: ACADEMIC RETURN,” NATURE 5 MAY 2016, VOL 533, p. S21

“My congressional representative asked me about output measures of Ohio State research. Was that research making an impact and how did we measure it? … I find the IRIS data increasingly useful for discussions about the value of research.”

—CAROLINE C. WHITACRE, VP FOR RESEARCH, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

“AAU universities conduct a majority of the federally funded university research, contributing to U.S. economic competitiveness, health, and national security. Now, with the help of IRIS, universities can better understand and demonstrate the impacts of research to their students, local community, and nation.”

– MARY SUE COLEMAN, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

INTERESTED IN JOINING IRIS? Visit our Membership page for details on how to get started.

NEWS

Applications open for IRIS Postdoctoral Research Fellowships

The Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS) invites applications for two Postdoctoral Research Fellows. These one-year fellowships are funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of a grant to develop and support the research community using the...

New Vendor Profile Reports released

A new round of Vendor Profile Reports are on their way to IRIS members, showing data such as the number of minority- or woman-owned businesses with research contracts, details on industries receiving research contracts down to the 4-digit NAICS code, county-level...

TWITTER FEED

@IRIS_UMETRICS

about 19 hours agoCheck out the updated list of confirmed speakers for the 2019 IRIS Summit in September in Ann Arbor. We'll have a p… https://t.co/nMWXFagNhY
about 23 hours agoICYMI, we are now taking applications for our third round of Researcher Awards, thanks to @SloanFoundation, for res… https://t.co/egllMUI8X7
about 3 days agoHappy to announce the call for proposals for our third round of IRIS Researcher Awards: up to $20,000 for research… https://t.co/o1R95u4Qmg

MORE TWEETS

Current Members

Already a member? Upload your files to our data ingest portal, or log in to view your custom reports.

DATA PORTAL

Institute for Research on Innovation and Science
University of Michigan
Institute for Social Research
Survey Research Center
330 Packard St, 2354 Perry Bldg
Ann Arbor, MI, 48104-2910

P: (734) 615-0015
F: (734) 763-3862
IRIS-info@umich.edu
iris.isr.umich.edu
@IRIS_UMETRICS / #irisumetrics