Project
Midwest
Suburban
Industry Analytics and Strategy

Northern Illinois Emerging Industry Cluster Analysis and Action Plan

February 1, 2024

The Challenge

Northern Illinois’ Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) called for creating a roadmap towards a more robust and economically resilient tri-county region. The CEDS identified four emerging industry clusters for further study: Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy, Innovative Agriculture, and IT Innovation.

The Region 1 Planning Council turned to Camion Associates for help better understanding the current state of these clusters in the region and to develop strategies and actions for a thriving economic future.

The Solution

The Camoin Associates team conducted industry cluster and workforce analysis, stakeholder engagement sessions, extensive research, and over 30 interviews to fully understand the challenges, opportunities, talent pipelines, and needs of the target industries.

We worked closely with Region 1 Planning Council to create a matrix of goals, strategies, and actions for the region to follow as they move into the implementation stage of this work.

The Impact

Through meaningful engagement and a collaborative creation process, Camoin Associates crafted goals and associated strategies and actions for advancing efforts to expand and attract the emerging industry clusters to the tri-county region. The strategy matrix not only highlights the level of priority for each action item, but also includes who is responsible for implementation, who the collaborators will be, and a realistic timeline for each. These specific details make the matrix more than a list of goals, but rather an action plan to take into the future and help Region 1 and its communities reach its economic potential.