This month, IRIS premiered the Beta version of the Industries of Ideas dashboard to our advisory board members. The Industries of Ideas project seeks to address the need for new, data-driven ways to demonstrate the value of national investments in knowledge-driven regional economic development.
The Beta version is an exciting new milestone in a three-year, $4.5 million pilot project funded by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) and developed by IRIS, The Ohio State University, and the Social Science Research Council. The prototype dashboard aims to measure how TIP’s strategic research investments in artificial intelligence and electric vehicle technology impact people, jobs, and regional economies in Ohio.
In order to understand, explain, and improve the impact of these federal research investments, IRIS and our project collaborators developed people-centric measurements that follow the movement of individuals paid on federally funded AI and EV research grants at universities into private-sector employment. Dashboard users can analyze how this flow of scientific talent impacts employers and industries over time through key labor force measures such as employee earnings, industry growth, and geographic distribution.
“By demonstrating how people with cutting-edge expertise move into innovative areas of the economy, we empower decision-makers with the data they need to understand and plan for the impact of these critical emerging technologies on the workforce.” — Jason Owen-Smith, IRIS Executive Director
The new release was driven by more than 200 comments from stakeholders around the country and includes several exciting additions, including the first job and employer-level measures drawn from linkages to the Ohio Unemployment Insurance Wage Record data.
Our work to make the Industries of Ideas dashboard strong and responsive to the needs of states and other stakeholders continues. The Industries of Ideas team is currently collecting feedback from key stakeholders including federal agencies, state program officers, and university researchers. To learn more about the data, functionality, and measures, premiered in the latest dashboard, watch the beta dashboard presentation to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.