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Cluster Studies

12.25.2009

Building on their successful Unlocking Rural Competitiveness project, Purdue Center for Regional Development has again teamed up with Indiana Business Research Center, Strategic Development Group, Rural Policy Research Institute, and EMSI on another web-based tool called Innovation in American Regions.

The tool, funded by the Economic Development Administration and the State of Indiana, makes life easier for regional analysts and economic developers in several ways:

1. Geographic flexibility – look at states, metropolitan areas, micropolitan areas, counties or build custom regions mixing and matching counties any way you like.
2. Benchmarking innovation - the Innovation Index still needs some work in terms of helping people understand what to do with the information, but the why it’s useful section is a good start. As more people start using the tool, links to real-life examples showing how people use the data would be a welcome feature.
3. Occupation clusters - traditional industry definitions are growing blurrier by the day (How would you classify Apple? Better question: Does it really matter?). Competitive advantage will be driven increasingly by skills–i.e. what do people in our region do better than people in other regions and how can we capitalize on that to attract investment and grow companies?

 

The financial crisis and recession have raised fundamental questions about economic development in America. Some pundits have suggested that economic growth during the past ten years has been nothing more than a debt-fueled illusion. If they are correct, we as economic developers have our work cut out for us in 2010. I can’t wait to get started.