In 1989, the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity produced the Made in America report. One of the recommendations of Made in America was to establish the Industrial Performance Center (IPC) to carry on the interdisciplinary investigations of industrial productivity, innovation, and competitiveness that the Commission had begun. Established in 1991, with the help of a major grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the IPC has brought together faculty and students from all five MIT Schools in research collaborations on industry. Since its inception, the faculty, students and affiliates of the IPC have produced numerous books, articles, papers and other publications that have advanced the understanding of strategic, technological, and organizational developments in a broad range of industries.

Book | March 6, 2023

Learning by Building: Complementary Assets and the Migration of Capabilities in U.S. Innovative Firms
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Hiram Samel

Joyce Lawrence

As policymakers in the United States debate how the economy can regain its vitality following the Great Recession, many see innovation as the key to prosperity.

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Report | March 21, 2022

The Work of the Future: Shaping Technology and Institutions
David Autor

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Program, and co-leader of both the MIT Work of the Future Task Force and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative.

David Mindell

David Mindell, an engineer and historian, is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT.

Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Economic and social disruptions often accompanied changes, with painful and lasting results for workers, their families, and communities. Along the way, valuable skills, industries, and ways of life were lost.

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Book | January 10, 2022

The Work of the Future, Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

David Autor

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Program, and co-leader of both the MIT Work of the Future Task Force and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative.

David Mindell

David Mindell, an engineer and historian, is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT.

Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem.

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Article | March 18, 2021

Innovation In Institutions And Technology Can Help Us In The Post-Pandemic Recovery
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

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Report | November 20, 2020

The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines
David Autor

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Program, and co-leader of both the MIT Work of the Future Task Force and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative.

Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

David Mindell

David Mindell, an engineer and historian, is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif commissioned the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future in the spring of 2018. He tasked us with understanding the relationships between emerging technologies and work, to help shape public discourse around realistic expectations of technology, and to explore strategies to enable a future of shared prosperity.

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Working Paper | September 30, 2020

Strengthening advanced manufacturing innovation ecosystems: The case of Massachusetts
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Yilmaz Uygun

Yilmaz Uygun is Professor of Logistics Engineering at Jacobs University, Bremen.

Several studies have highlighted the need to maintain and build manufacturing capabilities to support economic growth and have linked a nation's as well as region's strength in manufacturing to its ability to innovate.

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Working Paper | September 30, 2020

Innovation and Production: Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, Trends and Implications for US Cities and Regions
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Changes in advanced manufacturing technologies as well as the economics of manufacturing have significant implications for the location and spatial organization of production.

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Book | April 25, 2019

Innovation in Brazil, Advancing Development in the 21st Century
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Ben Ross Schneider

Ben Ross Schneider is the Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT.

Ezequiel Zylberberg

Since the early 2000s, state-led and innovation-focused strategies have characterized the approach to development pursued in countries around the world, such as China, India, and South Korea. Brazil, the largest and most industrialized economy in Latin America, demonstrates both the opportunities and challenges of this approach.

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Working Paper | January 23, 2019

Institutions, Public Policy and the Product Life Cycle: Globalization of Biomanufacturing and Implications for Massachusetts
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Biomanufacturing, specifically of large molecules, is one of the most complex types of manufacturing that exists. The challenge of scaling up living organisms combined with purifying their products to ensure safe administration to human beings creates a high risk process technically, financially, and from a public health perspective.

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Working Paper | January 22, 2019

Brazil’s Role in the Biopharmaceutical Global Value Chain
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Ezequiel Zylberberg

Ezequiel Zylberberg is a Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Industrial Performance Center, where he collaborates on various research projects, including the SENAI-funded Accelerating Innovation in Brazil project. Ezequiel earned his DPhil in Management Studies from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School as a member of Green Templeton College. His research interests […]

Victoria Del Campo

Brazil’s biopharmaceutical market has experienced dramatic changes since 2000, with improvements in the performance of local firms, as well as an expansion in consumer demand and productive capacity, which have made the country the sixth largest market in the world.

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Working Paper | January 22, 2019

The University as an Engine of Innovation: Critical Case Studies from Brazil and the U.S.
Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Executive Director, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future; Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center; Principal Research Scientist; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Fernanda de Negri

The university’s role now extends well beyond just research and education to more applied and translational work with industry as well as more entrepreneurial activities that support new venture formations among students and faculty.

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