From BGSU OFFICE OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
The Center for Regional Development (CRD) at Bowling Green State University has received a $300,000 CARES Act grant to support economic and workforce development recovery strategies across a 27-county region in northwest Ohio.
CRD will use the funding to leverage economic and demographic data analytics, as well as public facilitation expertise, to assist communities to position themselves to recover from the economic effects of the pandemic.
The additional funding by the CARES Act grant will also allow CRD to support grant applications by local governments and other governmental partners to address the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our local communities are navigating never-before-seen challenges due to COVID-19,” said Russell W. Mills, senior director of the Center for Regional Development. “This funding is critical in allowing CRD to bring additional staff capacity and expertise on board to expand our reach and support northwest Ohio.”
A team of BGSU graduate students from the public administration program and the applied statistics and operations research program will play an integral role in developing economic recovery strategies. The graduate students will perform data analysis, developing data visualization tools, identifying best practices and solutions from other communities, and conducting interviews with leaders from around the region.
The grant will support additional capacity for the Rural University Consortium, an Economic Development Administration (EDA) University Center operated in partnership between CRD and the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University.
BGSU’s grant was part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration awarding $7.8 million in EDA CARES Act Recovery Assistance grants to universities across the nation.
The grants are to boost their capacity to support regional economic development strategies in response to the coronavirus pandemic. CRD, supported by a local planning grant from EDA, is leading the update of the Toledo region Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) that will guide the region’s economic development activities over the next five years.
