WIL · Research Partnerships

Research Partnerships

The Workforce Intelligence Lab collaborates with universities, independent scholars, and research institutions on studies of workforce availability, infrastructure labor demand, and execution risk. Engagements are structured to preserve methodological independence — findings are separated from funder interests, and publication follows the Lab's editorial review process.

Engagement is open to universities, faculty, doctoral researchers, independent scholars, and policy institutions. Initial inquiries are reviewed within two weeks. Contact: research@alpha-hire.com.

1Partnership arrangements

The Lab supports four types of external research engagement. Each carries different terms, timelines, and outputs.

Co-authored studies

Joint research on a defined workforce or infrastructure topic, co-authored by Lab researchers and external scholars. Both institutional and named-author attribution follow standard scholarly conventions — name, affiliation, ORCID, and CRediT contributor roles. Output passes the Lab's six-stage review before publication.

Jointly scopedPeer-reviewed output

Visiting scholar & affiliate program

Qualified researchers can affiliate with the Lab for a defined period — contributing to an active research question, reviewing methodology, or co-developing a study design. Affiliation carries co-authorship rights on work the scholar contributes to, and access to approved methodology documentation and aggregate data extracts.

Semester or annual termApplication required

Methodology & source review

External academics can conduct a structured review of the methodology behind a published result — examining construct validity, indicator weighting, source reliability, and assumption sensitivity. Review findings are published alongside the record or as a separate commentary. This arrangement requires no formal partnership agreement.

Published commentaryNo agreement required

Data access for approved research

Approved researchers may request access to specific dataset extracts or approved underlying series for a defined, scoped research purpose. Access requires a data-use agreement, is time-bound, and is individually reviewed. The Lab does not provide public downloads, replication packages, or general API access.

Data-use agreementIndividually reviewed

2Current research areas

The Lab is particularly open to collaboration on the following active research themes. Proposals addressing these areas receive priority review.

Workforce-infrastructure coupling. How large-scale infrastructure investment (IIJA, IRA, CHIPS Act) transmits into local labor market conditions — occupational demand, compensation pressure, and contractor supply concentration.
AI infrastructure and skilled-trade labor demand. The relationship between hyperscale data-center and semiconductor construction pipelines and electrical, commissioning, and mechanical trade availability.
Grid construction labor. Workforce constraints on transmission, substation, and generation-adjacent construction — the occupational pipeline, union density, and geographic concentration.
Contractor market structure. Concentration risk in the general and specialty contractor market — firm survival, capacity constraints, and project execution risk under high-demand conditions.
Regional labor market divergence. Why exposure tiers diverge across states and metro areas with similar demographic profiles — institutional, regulatory, and structural factors.
Methodology validation. External validation of the WEI composite against realized project-delay or wage-escalation outcomes — the Lab actively seeks researchers interested in testing indicator predictive validity.

3What the Lab offers partners

Full access to published methodology documentation, version history, and source family disclosures (all public at Methodology Registry).
Approved access to aggregate data extracts and underlying series, scoped to the research purpose and subject to a data-use agreement.
Co-authorship and named-author attribution on jointly produced publications, following standard scholarly conventions (ORCID, CRediT roles, institutional affiliation).
Publication in the WIL Research Library — a citable record with a permanent document ID, methodology version, and Google Scholar indexing through Highwire citation tags and JSON-LD.
Separation of findings from sponsor interests: no funder may direct, suppress, or revise findings. All editorial decisions follow the Lab's review process.

4How to engage

Send a short description of your proposed research to research@alpha-hire.com — one or two paragraphs covering the research question, your institutional affiliation, the type of engagement you are proposing, and what access or collaboration you are seeking. The Lab reviews all inquiries and responds within two weeks with an initial assessment.

Proposals for co-authored studies and visiting scholar arrangements should include a brief research design and a proposed timeline. Data-access requests should identify the specific datasets and the research purpose. Methodology review inquiries may be informal.

Independence policy. The Lab's analytical independence is non-negotiable. No partner, funder, or sponsor may direct, condition, or suppress a published finding. Engagements are structured so external researchers can examine and challenge the methodology and findings — that scrutiny makes the work more useful, not less. For the governance framework, see About the Lab.

For Researchers →Methodology Registry →About the Lab →