The Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD) is the designated EDA University Center for the state of Indiana. As the EDA UC, PCRD works to enhance Indiana's regional economic ecosystems and innovation clusters through five main opportunities: 1) Developing data tools like the Regional Decision Maker platform; 2) Engaging key groups in using tools through training; 3) Producing informational resources on regions; 4) Implementing programs to support entrepreneurship and regional development; 5) Strengthening regional collaboration networks through programs like the Indiana Business Growth Network and Certified Technology Park Network.
4. 4
What is an Economic Development
Administration (EDA) University Center
(UC)?
Universities contain and have access to numerous
developmental, educational and technology-based
resources. The EDA University Center program was created
in order to direct these resources towards distressed
regional communities.
Each university deemed a “University Center” by the EDA must
devote a large percentage of their funding towards assisting
organizations within economically distressed regions.
The basics
EDA UCs provide
economic
development
resources to regional
economic ecosystems
and innovation
clusters.
section 01
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The PCRD University Center
The purpose of the Purdue Center for Regional
Development (PCRD) EDA UC is to delineate,
nurture and enhance Indiana’s regional
economic ecosystems and regional innovation
clusters.
The basics
section 01
The Purdue
Center for Regional
Development
(PCRD) is the
designated UC for
the State of Indiana.
In order to accomplish these tasks, PCRD focuses
on mobilizing a broad range of assets, including
higher education assets (specifically those of
Purdue University).
Applied research and development is required to
map relevant regional assets, along with a variety
of activities designed to align, link, leverage and
mobilize the assets and clusters identified and
mapped.
The final outcomes of these efforts will help
advance regional entrepreneurship and promote
regional commercialization activities.
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PCRD University Center opportunities
The basics
This booklet will walk you
through the five major
opportunities invested in
by PCRD. Within these
five opportunities, PCRD
has multiple active
programs.
section 01
8. 8
Opportunity 1: Develop and expand
cutting-edge online data tools
Developing data tools
section 02
PCRD is focused on an ongoing effort to refine and
expand its data-driven tools.
Regional Decision Maker (RDM) is PCRD’s primary online tool.
RDM is designed to help Indiana identify and support regional
innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization
opportunities.
RDM provides a set of
value-added data layers
and customized tools for
use in supporting
regional planning.
9. 9
Regional Decision Maker (RDM)
Developing data tools
section 02
RDM is a powerful suite of
mapping websites and tools that
enables users to make informed
decisions quickly and efficiently.
RDM facilitates and enables regional
decision-making in a number of
ways. Most importantly, it allows
decision-makers to interact with data
through customizable, user-friendly
tools and geographic visualization.
This high level of interactivity enables
decision-makers to generate
powerful insights more quickly.
RDM Users Include:
Local and regional decision-
makers
Government officials
Business leaders
Leadership of key non-
governmental organizations
Purdue's statewide
professional staff
RDM is able to provide users with easy access to a
fully interactive geospatial database that supports
regional collaboration, high-growth businesses and
innovation-based entrepreneurs.
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Opportunity 2: Engage key target groups
in using and refining RDM tools
Engaging key target groups
RDM is a powerful tool for mapping regional assets and
opportunities. Therefore, ensuring that RDM is seen as
practical and user-friendly by regional and state leaders
is an important task.
PCRD works to enhance the skills of individuals and groups that
want to utilize RDM by:
Developing and launching a website
Offering webinars and face-to-face training
Providing technical support
section 03
Mapping website on the RDM platform
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IARC staff training
Engaging key target groups
As Indiana's UC, PCRD has an important
responsibility to provide technical
assistance to the state's regional planning
councils (RPCs) and their association, the
Indiana Association of Regional Councils
(IARC).
Using RDM, PCRD has the capacity to provide
training to the staff of each RPC. With increased
analytical skills, access to data tools and
geographic visualization, RPCs will provide a
higher level of decision-making services to their
local regional partners.
Regional planning council staff have
better analytical skills and are able to
use this capacity to provide RDM
services to local regional partners.
Additionally, PCRD provides ongoing guidance and
training to ensure that each RPC is fully leveraging
the analytic power of RDM through webinars and
on-site IARC-sponsored workshops and
conferences.
section 03
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Indiana Association of Regional
Councils (IARC) regions
IARC technical support
Engaging key target groups
section 03
PCRD provides technical assistance and support to IARC
and its members.
This technical support includes:
Attending monthly IARC board meetings
Providing staff support for IARC's annual strategic planning
efforts
Assisting individual RPC members in the preparation of their
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS)
Supporting IARC with special programs
Offering IARC the opportunity to co-host our webinar series
designed to promote successful regional innovations
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Opportunity 3: Produce regional
economic profiles and other informational
resources
Producing informational resources
PCRD produces user-friendly products
that profile the economic strengths,
challenges and initiatives of regions in
Indiana (and beyond).
section 04
Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs)
Local economic development organizations
(LEDOs)
Chambers of Commerce
Extension Educators
Foundations
Community colleges and technical schools
State and regional workforce investment
boards
State legislative leaders and staffers
Target audiences for these resources include:
State agencies having a focus on
community and/or economic development
Regional Planning Councils (RPCs)
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Regional profiles and regional information
briefs
Producing informational resources
PCRD, in partnership with the Purdue Department
of Agricultural Economics, developed a series of
Information Briefs that provide regional planning
organizations and others with timely information
on a variety of topics such as demographic,
socioeconomic, education, economic and
workforce development.
section 04
PCRD produces a series of user-friendly
economic profiles that offer regions a succinct,
clearly written and visually attractive document
to guide their regional economic development
plans and activities.
Information briefsRegional profiles
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Leading Edge Practices (LEEP) in regional
development
Producing informational resources
LEEP is a navigational tool designed to assist regions in
learning from one another, leading to new strategies for
accelerating innovation.
LEEP includes a searchable database of over 1,400 regional
economic initiatives from across the country. The initial layer of
this tool provides basic information such as name of the
organization, a brief description of the organization, the counties
they serve, as well as contact information.
section 04
LEEP aids in the
establishment of a
vibrant, growing learning
community around the
study and practice of
successful regional
innovation clusters.
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Opportunity 4: Implement programs that
build on regional opportunities
Implementing programs
The fourth component of the PCRD UC
program is focused on creating and
introducing innovative programs that
complement and add value to a region’s
industry and occupation clusters.
These programs include entrepreneurship
advancement, second-stage company assistance,
regional economic development plan
implementation and green manufacturing
guidance.
section 05
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Economic Gardening
Implementing programs
Just as a gardener carefully tends her plants, Economic
Gardening represents an approach to economic
development to grow our own companies.
Economic Gardening accelerates the growth of smaller Indiana
companies by linking them more closely with the assets of Purdue
University.
Economic Gardening does not concentrate on start-up companies in
their first stage of growth. Rather, Economic Gardening focuses on
second stage, growth-oriented companies with between 10 and 100
employees.
section 05
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Entrepreneurship Academy
Implementing programs
Entrepreneurship Academy is targeted to
school-aged youth in Indiana. It
introduces them to the skills they need
to become an entrepreneur.
PCRD works with the Burton Morgan Center for
Entrepreneurship, Extension Educators and
other key partners to help plan, market,
support and implement this program.
section 05
The Entrepreneurship Academy is a week-long
program held on the Purdue University campus or
satellite locations. Students are guided by local
business leaders and Purdue University experts.
As part of the Academy, students test the viability
of a business idea, identify capital needs and
devise a management plan. The program
culminates with a business plan competition
during which teams present their capital needs and
management plans to a panel of judges.
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CTW recognition program
Implementing programs
section 05
PCRD supports and assists with Indiana’s Companies to
Watch (CTW) award and recognition program.
In 2007 (as part of our UC work), Purdue took the lead in bringing
the CTW program to Indiana. To date, nearly 200 second-stage
companies have been recognized as CTW awardees. The power of
these growth-oriented second stage companies is immense.
Unfortunately, the pivotal role of second stage companies in job
and wealth creation is not widely understood or appreciated. CTW
is one important way of addressing the lack of awareness of these
vital companies and the importance of strong regional
entrepreneurial ecosystems to support their growth.
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Stronger Economies Together (SET)
Implementing programs
The SET program enables communities and counties in
rural America to work together to develop and implement
an economic development plan.
Finding ways to create, attract and retain jobs in many American
counties (especially those with smaller populations) is a
challenging process. Economic development improvements are
more likely to be realized when counties work together as a multi-
county region.
Collaborating as a region allows counties to design and
implement plans that build on their collective assets and
comparative economic strengths.
section 05
SET is used to
strategically build on
the current and
emerging economic
strengths of rural
regions.
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Technical Assistance Program (TAP)
Implementing programs
Purdue's Technical Assistance Program (TAP) works with
Indiana companies to improve performance through the
utilization of Purdue faculty, students and staff in nine
statewide offices.
TAP works with PCRD to offer training and workshops related to:
Continuous improvement
Quality improvement and leadership
Energy efficiency and sustainability
Green manufacturing
This training allows business owners, leaders and company
personnel to learn the latest tools and techniques necessary to
improve efficiency, reduce costs and improve inventory control.
section 05
TAP locations
25. 25
IARC regional conferences
Implementing programs
section 05
PCRD gives the Indiana Association of
Regional Councils (IARC) an opportunity to
promote regional development through
regular regional conferences.
As federal and state governments focus
increasingly on regional development,
communities and counties are being
encouraged to work together. These IARC
regional conferences foster collaboration and
expand training opportunities for a variety of
PCRD’s programs.
In addition, IARC works with PCRD to create and
implement strategic activities as a follow-up to
each regional conference. By uniting and building
upon each regional gathering, the impact of each
conference is maximized.
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Opportunity 5: Strengthen regional
collaboration and innovation networks
Strengthening regional networks
section 06
PCRD supports and partners with several
collaboration and innovation networks in
Indiana.
These networks are facilitated by Strategic Doing, a
program that quickly develops sophisticated
collaborations to help advance open innovation
across organizational and political boundaries.
Strategic Doing ignites the spark of regional
innovation and enables people in loosely
connected networks to think and act strategically
together.
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Strategic Doing
Strengthening regional networks
Strategic Doing is the backbone of PCRD’s
work to advance regional networks and
accelerate innovation and collaboration.
Strategic Doing enables people to form action-
oriented collaborations quickly, guide them
toward measurable outcomes and make
adjustments along the way.
Using Strategic Doing, regional networks are
successfully deployed throughout Indiana with
an agile strategic discipline that enables civic
leaders to generate innovations in their region.
section 06
These innovations link, leverage and align state
and federal resources for innovations in workforce
and economic development.
Learn more about Strategic Doing here.
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Indiana Business Growth Network (IBGN)
Strengthening regional networks
section 06
The Indiana Business Growth Network was
created to develop regional networks
around second-stage firms in Indiana.
A business typically enters its second stage when
it approaches $1 million in revenue.
The IBGN reaches out to these second-stage and
late first-stage companies to strengthen and grow
their business operations through expanded
investment in regional entrepreneurship and
innovation.
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Indiana Prototyping Collaborative Network
(IPCN)
Strengthening regional networks
section 06
The Indiana Prototyping Collaborative Network (IPCN) was
created to support the owners and key personnel in growth-
oriented start-up firms. The network has two major priorities:
Assisting first and second stage companies in Indiana gain
access to prototyping facilities at Universities
Helping prototype and commercialize university-based
intellectual property
The IPCN increases the
flow of university
technologies into
commercialization,
lessening the burden
on Indiana
entrepreneurs.
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Certified Technology Park (CTP) network
Strengthening regional networks
section 06
There are 19 Certified Technology Parks (CTPs) in Indiana.
PCRD created the CTP network in order to "align, link, and leverage"
the CTPs’ efforts with regional and state organizations. These
organizations include:
The Indiana SBDCs
The regional planning council members of IARC
The Indiana USDA Rural Development offices
This CTP network supports the attraction and growth of high-
technology businesses in Indiana and promotes technology transfer
opportunities.
CTP locations
32. For more information,
please contact Peggy
Hosea at
phosea@purdue.edu
888-750-7277
765-236-0955
The Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD) seeks to pioneer
new ideas and strategies that contribute to regional collaboration,
innovation and prosperity.