Delaware Valley Innovation Network (DVIN)
The Delaware Valley Innovation Network (DVIN) was formed to apply for a Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grant from the United States Department of Labor. In 2007, DVIN received a $5.1 million grant to support worker training and talent development within the life sciences and its supporting industries. Of the 39 WIRED initiatives established across the United States, DVIN was the only tri-state WIRED project and was endorsed by Governors RuthAnn Minner (DE), James McGreevey (NJ) and Edward Rendell (PA). DVIN was a regional collaborative partnership amongst government, academia, industry, and economic and workforce development organizations that served 14-counties within three states including New Castle county in Delaware; Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, Mercer and Salem counties in New Jersey; and Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania. The DVIN project was governed by a dedicated Executive Committee who ensured that the initiatives showcased in this report were innovative, industry driven and regional in scope. Although this was only a three year grant, the social and human capital impact will be felt for many years to come.
The United States Department of Labor WIRED Initiative emphasized the critical role that the workforce plays in creating effective regional economic development strategies. With a $5.1 million WIRED grant, DVIN went beyond traditional strategies for life science talent and workforce development in the region. From 2007 to 2010, DVIN made unprecedented progress in establishing a cross-disciplinary network of collaborative partnerships and in developing and implementing 15 innovative initiatives that fulfilled DVIN's mission of transforming the life science industry in the region into an internationally recognized center for excellence.
DVIN generated data and inventories about the life sciences industry, trained teachers with the latest pedagogical and scientific information to use in their classrooms, creatively responded to the downturn in the economy with the DVIN Life Science Fellowship Training Program, developed and distributed career lattices, trained almost 2,000 workers and impacted more than 17,000 students and teachers throughout the region. DVIN's collaborative partnerships addressed critical needs of the region's life science industry at a crucial time in the economy. DVIN successfully contributed to sustaining regional competitiveness in life science, and increased the competitiveness of the region's life science industry on a global scale.
For a complete review of the DVIN initiative please read the Building the Region's Life Science Talent Together.
For questions relating to DVIN, please contact Kelly Lee, President and CEO, Innovation Philadelphia at klee@innovationphiladelphia.com or at (215) 496-8110.