The Manufacturing USA Institutes were created to be innovators in technology research and development, thus, supporting integration of novel and advanced technologies into U.S. industries. Additionally, each Manufacturing USA Institute was tasked with an education and workforce development mission. This mission involves alignment of industry, academia, and government to strengthen the U.S. workforce's advanced technical skills in support of U.S. global leadership in advanced manufacturing. This project will organize a conference that brings together eight of the Education and Workforce Development Directors along with regional strategic partners. The aim of this convening will be to establish innovative career and technical education pathways for educating the skilled technical workforce needed as industry implements new technologies. The conference outcomes will inform the career and technical education communities, Manufacturing USA Institutes, and the U.S. Advanced Manufacturing industries of best practices and models for educating the skilled technical workforce. This is a joint project between the Departments of Education and Defense and the National Science Foundation. The overall goal is to assist the Manufacturing USA Institutes to become drivers of regional economic development as they implement best practices and models to educate domestic talent to ensure U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.
The conference will bring together region-based teams from eight of the Manufacturing USA Institutes to: 1) identify/help formulate the value proposition for targeted organizations to partner with the institutes for region-specific manufacturing workforce development; 2) identify the skills demanded by the regional manufacturing economies, expected growth in the demand and occupations that can meet the skill requirements; 3) determine the regional operational patterns of the manufacturing workforce demand distribution between large vs. small/midsized enterprises ; 4) determine strategies to involve the entire talent development pipeline; 5) identify additional organizations and agencies to recruit for formal and informal relationships; 6) explore innovative approaches to increase the effectiveness of technician education and training; and 7) establish best practices to utilize regional workforce development resources. Conference outcomes will include action plans from each participating Manufacturing USA Institute aimed at achieving the above objectives. These plans will be disseminated to the entire Manufacturing USA Institute community as well as the career and technical education communities that include both secondary and post-secondary institutions. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
