Technical Assistance

Our technical assistance aids policymakers and workforce development staff to better implement innovation and job-creation strategies by:

• Understanding the economic forces affecting regions and states
• Helping local leaders formulate knowledge-based strategies
• Developing transformational models that support knowledge-driven economic prosperity

Building On the Knowledge Economy

The Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC) uses information and data to create resources and toolkits so that state and national policymakers can evaluate, shape, and implement effective and state- and region-specific programs that promote economic development efforts.

Many of our technical-assistance efforts are aimed at: federal agencies, regional and state offices, private nonprofits, educational institutions, and sub-state regional coalitions.

While our primary area of policy expertise relates to economic development, workforce development, and education, our network extends beyond these policy areas through the Association of Public Data Users (APDU) into a variety of fields ranging from health care, criminal justice and housing, and demographics to transportation.

Related Projects

The Hidden Innovation Infrastructure: Understanding the Economic Development Role of Technician Education in the Changing Future of Work
Rutgers Research
Start Date: Jan 2022 — End Date: Jun 2023

CREC senior staff advise the Rutgers research team at the Education and Employment Research Center as the team, led by Dr. Michelle Van Noy, seeks to understand the role of technician education in economic development, with a focus on manufacturing, technology, and innovation in regional economies.

Inventory of Public and Private Sources of Education and Workforce Data
Lumina Foundation
Start Date: Mar 2023 — End Date: May 2023

CREC created an inventory of public and private sources of education and workforce data to increase the capacity of the public Workforce and Labor Market Information System (WLMIS) to provide relevant data for education and training providers. The inventory considered a wide array of data sources that measure important WLMIS concepts, including: Households and People […]

Increasing Public Labor Market Information Capacity to Provide Sub-State and Skills Projections Data
Lumina Foundation
Start Date: Dec 2021 — End Date: Mar 2023

CREC collaborated with the Projections Managing Partnership (PMP) to increase the capacity of the public Labor Market Information (LMI) system to provide relevant substate and skills data for education and training providers. The project inventoried substate projections availability among states, reviewed and documented methods for developing substate projections, added new substate projections content and toolkits […]

Counting U.S. Secondary and Postsecondary Credentials 2022-23
Credential Engine
Start Date: Jan 2022 — End Date: Mar 2023

CREC continued its work in generating a national count of unique credentials available for American workers. The count provides the number of credentials by type and by state. CREC conducted research on certain credential segments to better understand patterns of credentialing in certain key industries. CREC provided a national report on the status of credentials […]

Evaluation (GMKPI) Framework for NCBiotech and Accelerate NC
North Carolina Biotechnology Center
Start Date: Nov 2022 — End Date: Feb 2023

The Life Sciences Manufacturing Coalition collaborated with experts from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, CREC, to develop an evaluation framework that ensured NCBiotech and key stakeholders were prepared to implement and evaluate projects funded by the Economic Development Administration Build Back Better Regional Challenge. These projects aimed to support innovation and impact, such as […]
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