Our Projects
CREC tackles projects of all scales and in all places. We produced the "State of the North Carolina Workforce Report," worked with stakeholders to build an economic development plan for Greater Nashville, and developed comprehensive economic development curricula for policy-makers across the Province of Ontario. We have partnered with think-tanks to develop research reports and white papers, and worked with community colleges to help steer program development to meet their region's future workforce needs. There is no standard project.
Broadly though, we can categorize our undertakings into four areas. Our ability to help you: Analyze Your Clusters and Talent, Plan Your Economic Future, Train Your Leaders, and Manage Your Professional Networks. Please click on any of the links below to see just some of the examples of our previous projects in each.
- Analyze Your Clusters and Talent
CREC assists policy-makers to assess the state of their region's industries and workforce. Through extensive quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis – using public and proprietary data sources, industry-wide surveys, and stakeholder interviews – the team tracks and projects economic trends, identifying potential supply chain linkages, and where possible occupational and training gaps could occur.
- Plan Your Economic Future
CREC facilitates meaningful dialogues among public and private sector leaders to identify and evaluate chronic or emerging economic and workforce challenges, and to design and prioritize effective, collaborative strategies for addressing them. CREC helps generate consensus among a wide variety of stakeholders on the most efficient, customized, growth-oriented solutions, then develop plans to implement them.
- Train Your Leaders
CREC has developed extensive professional development curricula, implemented in-person or through web-delivery, for economic and workforce development staff on basic principles of data use, development, economic analysis, labor market information, and economic policy implementation. Trainings are offered in partnership with the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), the Labor Market Information (LMI) Training Institute, and the Association of Public Data Users (APDU).
- Manage Your Professional Networks
CREC provides management support to national professional organizations whose missions focus on community and economic development and/or economic statistics and analysis. CREC provides financial management, business operation support, and event planning and coordination, as well as trained research staff to our network of organizational partners.
If you are interested in learning more about how CREC can help your region compete, please feel free to contact to our CEO directly at kpoole@crec.net. If you have any project-specific questions, our Vice President of Research, Mark White, would also happily get you the information you need. He can be reached directly at mwhite@crec.net.
At the core of CREC's mission is a belief that all economic development and workforce initiatives should be grounded in solid data-driven investigation. While we often help regions or communities identify future direction, this is based on evidence and data – not just our gut as experienced economic development practitioners and analysts.
Data come in many forms, and our staff tries to support every type of analysis by integrating a variety of research approaches – ranging from the use of public statistics to gathering perceptions and opinions from key stakeholders. After engaging with our clients as partners, our goal is to help articulate the questions and concerns they have in a way that clearly defines actionable research leading to insights.
Our method for "Informing the Process," as shown below, comes in three broad phases: the situational assessment, the quantitative analysis, and hands-on research.
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Informing the Process: Establishing a Data-Driven Foundation for Planning & Implementation
- Background Assessment
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Our background research begins before we ever talk to a client – through our understanding of economic and workforce development patterns gained from decades of experience. Our assessment, however, starts with our client, garnering information and insights they have about the region's history, its issues, and its perceived opportunities. Our staff get on the ground from a project's beginning to, literally, see its environment, and to really appreciate the area where we will be investing our time and expertise.
CREC staff then ensures that we have a thorough understanding of what the region has done before and how that work was received, keeping in mind that sound research is an integral part of regional priority setting and decision making. We also examine the area's key assets – community colleges, universities, infrastructure, culture, natural environment – and begin to examine existing and emerging industries.
- Quantitative Analysis
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After developing a firm grasp of the region and its unique features, the CREC team dig into the data to validate what we know and search for patterns that might motivate or inspire our partners to action.
Our staff has a unique relationship with the Federal public agencies involved in creating statistics because they also work with our association partners in monitoring advances in statistics and advising the agencies on how to disseminate data in user friendly forms that our clients can use. We supplement that insight and those sources with an unparalleled knowledge of proprietary data sources to enhance our work and discern patterns. We also understand how far these data sources can be taken and our analysts are equipped to undertake creative approaches to developing estimates that can be used to fill some of the inevitable data gaps.
- Hands-on Research
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We do not take the quantitative data at face value. The trends they show often mask many others. The essential next step involves gaining context behind the numbers and gaining perspective on apparent trends.
The CREC team facilitates hands-on research as a critical foundation of our data-driven approach. This consists of a variety of one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and surveys of stakeholders and industry leaders designed to elicit a better understanding of a region's outlook, its challenges, and its opportunities. The fundamental goal is to understand the conditions under which local industries are operating and to identify the story behind the numbers that our quantitative analysis reveals. Furthermore, these interviews, focus groups, and surveys are more than data collection techniques, they are also approaches for engaging key private and public sector leaders in a process of providing input that often sets the stage for longer-term engagement in decision making about a region's economic future.
Our end-products are actionable plans or analyses designed to support those plans. The reports are typically written in full narrative form with detailed appendices for those who are interested in the details. They take on a variety of forms such as briefing papers, memos, state of the region reports, or regional profiles. Regardless of the scope and size of your project, CREC is equipped to deliver the data you need to feel confident in your results.
For more information about our data-driven mission or experiences, please feel free to reach out to our Vice President of Research, Mark White, directly at mwhite@crec.net.
Since 2000, the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness has traveled across the country (and sometimes around the world) to help regions compete. The process of creating a region, evaluating where it stands, setting up priorities to make the region more competitive, and putting together a plan to implement those actions is not an easy task. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, nor are there shortcuts. Sustainable, effective plans require time, energy, and the buy-in of countless stakeholders in their preparation. In pursuit of our not-for-profit mission, we are here to help you do just that.
Our overall planning process, as shown below, is pretty straightforward (but always evolving). We recognize that planning is not a linear process and often involves building on past efforts. While we start with strategy development, we recognize that much has happened before the process so a successful plan builds on the foundations of past, the ingenuity of the present, and a clear vision of the future.
CREC's primary goal is to facilitate your efforts to create jobs and generate economic prosperity while leaving your organization with the capacity to manage the on-going implementation process successfully.
© Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness 2011
The CREC team has helped regions work through the planning process with dozens of communities, regions, states, and organizations. We have also assisted a number of in-progress initiatives to get past a variety of trouble areas. Ultimately, we want our clients to succeed, and we provide them with the support they need to do so.
Beyond leading the economic planning process, our staff is also trained to help regional leaders:
- Facilitate stakeholder meetings with the goals of achieving issue consensus and/or plan buy-in;
- Bring private and public sector leaders together to have effective conversations and develop consensus around important issues;
- Develop tailored case examples that highlight best practices from regions with similar challenges;
- Establish benchmarks for success and processes for measuring them.
If we can help you and your regional leadership put together a plan that will guide your region for the next decade, please reach out to us. That is what we were founded to do.
For more information about past experiences putting together economic or workforce development strategies and implementation plans, please feel free to reach out to our CEO, Ken Poole, directly at kpoole@crec.net.
CREC, in partnership with the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), the Labor Market Information (LMI) Training Institute, and the Association of Public Data Users (APDU) presents trainings on the basic principles of data use in supporting economic and workforce development, economic analysis, labor market assessments, and economic policy implementation. To view a sample of our available trainings, refer to any of the links below:
CREC, in conjunction with our partners, also develops, customizes, and updates our trainings to meet the varied needs of our clients, and to reflect our experiences out in the field. For the Economic Developers' Conference of Ontario, for instance, CREC staff, working through C2ER, developed a customized two-tiered curriculum to assist policy-makers of various levels of expertise effectively approach regional collaboration and data-driven economic development planning. The curricula were informed and enhanced by the production of ten original case examples, which portrayed recent planning success and failures from across North America.
Additionally, through C2ER and the LMI Training Institute, CREC can provide clients with access to the Annual C2ER/ LMI Research Forums: five day conferences made up of dozens of panels, trainings, and lectures discussing the most pressing issues in economic development. Our 2011 training was held in San Francisco, California, and brought together hundreds of policy-makers and researchers from around the globe. Information on our past and future conferences can be found at: www.c2er.org/conference/
Our staff can also provide expertise and technical assistance with revitalizing previously developed economic and data trainings by: evaluating course strengths and weaknesses, piloting new material, developing new content, or migrating material to a web-delivery or more interactive format.
For more information about CREC's scheduled trainings, customized training, curriculum, and case study development, please contact Program Manager, Ron Kelly, at
rkelly@crec.net.
Since our inception in 2000, the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC) has been actively engaged with managing networks of practitioners and professionals who value evidence-based policy making and the data required for that work. In our founding year, CREC began to manage the administrative, technical and training operations of our close partner, the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). Founded in 1961, C2ER is a national membership organization of researchers and practitioners in chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, local and state governments, applied academic research centers, and numerous other intermediary organizations. It was created to promote excellence in community and economic research. Under CREC's management, C2ER has developed an excellent reputation in data advocacy and training, expanded its revenues fivefold, and attracted a talented Board to guide the organization's future.
In 2008, CREC took on management responsibilities for two other organizations: the Labor Market Information (LMI) Training Institute and the Association of Public Data Users (APDU). Our agreements and contracts with both, as with all other prospective organizations, are designed to meet the needs of the organization as they build a brand within their networks, expand their service offerings, and ensure the group operates in under sound financial principles.
For more information about CREC's data association management capacities, please contact our COO, Sean McNamara, at sam@crec.net.
