FY 2011 Research Design Project

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Pursuant to its National Technical Assistance program, EDA seeks applications to develop and test measures, metrics, indicators, and methodologies to help the agency more effectively assess, evaluate, and report the full impact of its economic development investments on regional economies across the Nation.High-quality performance evaluation is imperative to ensuring the effective operation of EDA's programs, and such evaluation is highly dependent on the availability of valid and accurate information. Strategic resource allocation decisions are heavily informed by assessing the efficacy of EDA's efforts and initiatives. Thus, it is crucial that these assessments are predicated upon an abundance of relevant data. The ability to collect and analyze robust data is vital to fulfilling EDA's mission. EDA makes grant investments that support and foster economic development in distressed regions. Currently, EDA's primary metrics for assessing potential investments focus on economic outcomes related to job creation, private investment leveraged, and bolstering regional capacity. Information on EDA's existing performance measures can be found on its website at http://www.eda.gov/AboutEDA/PerfMeasures.xml. Under this competitive solicitation, the agency seeks to identify a broader array of measures which could be utilized to assess the impact of EDA's investments on regional economies, particularly measures which help identify the outcomes that result from EDA's investments. Additionally, the agency seeks information which could inform and enhance its forecasting and validation methods. EDA solicits competitive applications from organizations or consortia that will build on the agency's existing body of research and experience related to performance measurement to identify, pilot, and refine appropriate performance and outcome measures, data collection processes, and forecasting and validation methods. EDA envisions that the results of this proposed study would include a recommendation on an optimal data set that EDA could develop and use in measuring its performance. This data set could be collected and submitted by grantees (e.g., as a condition of awarding grant funds or as a post-approval condition under an award) to document the results of their own activities and the activities of beneficiaries, or could take the form of an easily accessible, independent data source(s) that help inform EDA's measurement of its own activities. Strong applications from qualified researchers will address the project tasks set out in the Research Design FFO. Please see the full FFO announcement under "Research Design FFO Announcement Link" below for complete information regarding the competition and to help ensure your application is timely received by EDA.

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