EduTech Cluster Report: Key Findings and Recommendations
Lane County’s key industrial clusters are Food and Beverage (manufacturing and agricultural production), Advanced Materials (construction materials, materials science), and EduTech (software publishing, social and behavioral research). Clustering of closely related business is known to promote and catalyze innovation as different disciplines of thinking collide.
EduTech
- There is a significant concentration of software developers in Eugene-Springfield—nearly six times the national average
- Software publishing contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to Gross Metropolitan Product; nearly as much wood products
- Social science researchers are highly concentrated in Eugene (more than 8 times the national average) due to the presence of several institutions outside of the University of Oregon (Oregon Research Institute, ISTE, ORCAS, EPIC, et al.
- The knowledge and technical skills of local software publishers and social science research are complementary, and relevant to the emerging industry known internationally as "EduTech"
- Social science research institutes and custom software publishers share difficulty in recruiting trained and experienced middle-managers as well as talented computer program engineers