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Upjohn Study Details Strategies to Enhance the Impact of OIEx
The W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research (Kalamazoo, MI) released findings of its study examining, “Sustainability Practices, Policies, and Business Models of Web-Based Innovation Platforms” commissioned by the Ohio Department of Higher Education evaluating the OIEx statewide initiative.
Examining peer efforts across the United States that are similar to OIEx in scope and focus, economist and lead author Iryna Lendel, Senior Director of Regional Economic and Community Development at Upjohn, provides specific recommendations for achieving operational excellence and building broader awareness of this resource-sharing strategy and online knowledge management portal and its supporting ecosystem.
The report notes that OIEx stands out as one of the pioneering multi-university initiatives in the United States.
In the report, Lendel’s team identifies opportunities to enhance the impact and sustainability of OIEx, with policy recommendations emphasizing the need for OIEx to transition toward a role as a knowledge broker bridging the gaps between the needs of industry and supply of university resources. The report details recommendations for refining marketing, communications, and business strategies of OIEx to achieve the next level of operational excellence.
Specific Recommendations:
- Marketing and Promotion. OIEx currently functions as a university product provider, offering a valuable resource that remains relatively unknown to most business and industry leaders. The program has a unique opportunity to proactively strengthen and grow new connections between the needs of businesses and the faculty and facilities of Ohio universities. To achieve this, OIEx should consider investing in additional marketing and promotional efforts, including actively promoting each business/university partnership it brokers on social media and through targeted marketing strategies.
- Workforce Development. There is an opening for OIEx to increase workforce development opportunities by including internships, co-ops, and graduate placements in its research and innovation processes and projects.
- Staffing Considerations. Based on reviewing the staffing of existing similar (often much smaller) initiatives, the report recommends adding staff to grow capabilities around core information technologies and communications/marketing.
- Funding. Finally, while the current funding mechanisms are stable, securing diversified funding streams — including both the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the broader economic development sector — to optimally position OIEx for continued growth of its feature sets, discovery technologies, and broader awareness is imperative.
Conceived as a cross-sector initiative, OIEx is an industry-sought, higher education-driven, and state government-sponsored information solution focused on improving industry access to expertise, research services, and technology resources from a growing coalition of Ohio universities.
Upjohn Regional provides applied economic research and technical assistance. It addresses issues in regional economies, economic development, workforce/occupational development, evaluation, public policy development, and economic impact modeling and analysis. It is a unit of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
