Innovation Insight served as the primary research consultant on an international workforce project funded by the US Department of Education, under contract with with Concurrent Technologies and St. Petersburg College. Innovation Insight provided research expertise regarding “industry cluster” analysis, survey, focus group and research expertise to support the identification of common industry training and certification needs, helping community colleges identify appropriate roles for facilitating and nurturing medical manufacturing clusters in their regions, and contacts and expertise regarding the medical device industry itself.

Beginning in September 2003, eight two-year colleges, including schools from the United States, Denmark and Ireland, banded together to develop specialized education and training services that address critical needs identified by representatives from the medical device industry. This initiative was part of an on-going national program, known as the Cluster HUBS project. The Cluster HUBS project was a congressionally directed project that is funded through the U.S. Department of Education.

The purpose of this document was to share information on the methodology and the tools that were utilized to gather industry input and analyze the industry’s needs. This included a focus group format, a survey instrument, and the aggregate results from the surveys conducted by the two-year colleges.

This information is being shared to provide leading educators at two-year colleges with information on a proactive cluster-based initiative that is aligning college programs with the needs of their business customers. The methodology outlined in this document should be helpful to colleges that are considering education and training initiatives that target specific industry clusters.

During the first year of the project, participating colleges used the methodology and tools that are summarized in this document to develop industry-defined education and training plans that are customized to address the industry’s most critical workforce development needs.

The Cluster Hubs website is accessbile here; you can download the general report here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. You can also access the final report to the Department of Education here.