The “Know Your Region” Project has five major components: a needs assessment; the development of the curriculum; curriculum testing; curriculum revision; and curriculum dissemination.

Needs Assessment
The aim of the needs assessment, conducted primarily by means of a survey, was to determine the extent of practitioners’ familiarity with regionalism and industry cluster concepts, tools, data, and strategies.  The survey targeted economic developers, workforce development specialists, and education professionals and the findings fed directly into the development of the curriculum by suggesting the topics and depth of coverage.

Curriculum Development
Using the results from the needs assessment, the project team identified the topics and depth of coverage of interest to practitioners nationwide.  Combining these results with their expertise, the project team designed an innovative curriculum which illustrates how the concepts of regionalism and clustering fit into the strategic planning process.  This practical curriculum offers a step-by-step look at how to more effectively understand and apply these concepts in their everyday work.

The curriculum is organized into the following five modules (module 4 contains an additional sub-component case study):

• One: The Collaborative Regional Economic Development Framework
• Two: Leading the Planning Effort
• Three: Detecting Regional Advantage
• Four: Formulating Strategies
• Four-a (case study): Linking Economic and Workforce Development
• Five: Executing Your Plan

Curriculum Testing
The curriculum developed through this initiative was tested at a workshop for development practitioners in late July.  In addition to providing practitioners an opportunity to gain a new understanding of the importance of clustering and regionalism, attendees also were provided informal and formal opportunities to provide feedback on the curriculum content, organization, and delivery.

Curriculum Revision
Based on the findings from the curriculum testing phase, the curriculum is being revised by the project partners to ensure that the content, organization, and delivery strategies are as applicable, informative, and practical for local development practitioners as possible.

Curriculum Dissemination
The curriculum through this project will be disseminated to economic development and workforce development specialists through this website and paper self-study materials.  Pursuant to recent EDA funding opportunity through the National Technical Assistance Department this curriculum will also be delivered over the next three years in the format of national and regional workshops.