Strategies.
Insights.
Results.
Strategic planning, primary research, and communications for the leaders shaping communities and the institutions that serve them.
Strategies.
Insights.
Results.
Strategic planning, primary research, and communications for the leaders shaping communities and the institutions that serve them.
1964
Established
17,000
Projects
and Studies
Improving Tomorrow
Founded in 1964, S.I.R. is one of the nation’s longest-tenured independent, research-based strategic consultancies. We help communities and the organizations that serve them make high-stakes decisions that shape competitiveness, opportunity, and long-term growth.
Our work sits at the intersection of economic development, community development, and implementation, where strategy must translate into real-world outcomes.
Helping communities decide what's next
S.I.R.'s research-driven insights have shaped strategies across dozens of industries. All of it led here. We help entire communities, cities, and states look beyond immediate decisions to understand the forces shaping the future and develop strategies that position them to lead. Here’s why:
Collaboration Matters
Every region that pulls ahead does it the same way: neighboring localities deciding to compete as one economy instead of several.
Our insights help drive them.
Investment Doesn’t Wait
Site selectors keep short lists, and the places on them decided to be ready years earlier: sites prepared, workforce mapped, story straight.
Our research shapes these plans.
Trust Takes Effort
Public institutions win people back one honest interaction at a time, and it starts with listening to the people the system is for.
We cross these bridges.
What We Deliver To Leaders
We're at our best when the stakes are high, the decisions are complex, the public is watching, and growth is on the line.
Strategic Planning
Economic development plans, community development programs, and workforce strategy: actionable plans that strengthen competitiveness, improve quality of life, and drive talent attraction and retention
Communications
Stakeholder engagement and the message that carries it: facilitation, consensus-building, and activation, backed by public affairs, coalition-building, and media training and support
Primary Research
Qualitative and quantitative insights that change decisions and direction, from stakeholder interviewing to perception studies and workforce analysis.
Implementation
Governance and alignment around a shared vision and an executable plan, with performance measurement to match: KPIs, dashboards, evaluation, and impact reporting.
What Sets
Us Apart
Research is our foundation.
We were founded as a research firm and we still run like one, not a slide factory.
Fully in-house research; strategies built from evidence, not assumptions.
Right-sized on purpose.
The sweet spot between a global firm and a solo consultant: boutique accessibility, with the capacity, continuity, and infrastructure of a fully staffed team.
Real-world judgement
Our leadership includes former public-sector and economic development practitioners. We design strategies that hold up in council chambers, EDA boardrooms, and public scrutiny, not just on paper
Perspective
Economic Development has always been Redevelopment
Redevelopment is where economic growth meets the buildings a community already has, and increasingly, it's the only game in town. Anthony Romanello, S.I.R. Managing Partner, shares why the vacant retail boxes and dated office buildings hiding in plain sight may be the most consequential opportunities on any city's map.
Insights
Intelligence as Infrastructure
S.I.R. examines what the history of energy infrastructure can teach us about artificial intelligence. As AI shifts from software to something closer to a utility, we looks at the electricity buildout of the last century, the current constraints on power and data center capacity, and what the buildout means for the problems communities have never had the capacity to attempt.
Impact
Virginia's newest megaregion
Blacksburg, Roanoke, Danville, and Martinsville spent decades competing separately. S.I.R. united them into the Blue Ridge Innovation Corridor, Virginia's newest megaregion, now making a case to state and federal agencies no locality could make alone. We mapped each locality's assets, built the data-driven argument for investing together, and created the shared governance framework that keeps four metros moving as one.
Tell us what you're working on?
If you're working on a decision that matters to a community, an institution, or the people they serve, we'd be glad to hear about it. Reach us below and we’ll get back to you right away.
If you would prefer to start your conversation with someone specific on our team, please refer to our staff profiles on our People Page.