Community leaders and managers now have more powerful tools to understand their communities' economic strengths and vulnerabilities thanks to the newly enhanced and cleverly named National Economy Resilience Data Explorer (NERDE). became. The enhanced second edition of the online data portal makes it easier for users to create economic development plans, improve resilience, and apply for financial aid and grants.
NERDE first launched in 2022 as a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA). Since then, both the number of users and the range of resources have increased significantly.
“We've spent the past year and a half talking to as many user groups as possible to learn exactly how people use the portal and what data is important to them. ” explained Ian Reid Hyde, Director of National Economic Research and Resilience. Argonne Center. “We found NERDE to be extremely useful for grant applications, comprehensive economic development strategies, and market research. It helped users better understand their strengths. Should we focus on the issue?”
NERDE data includes statistics on the region's economic crisis, employment and gross domestic product, regional industry clusters, climate risks and innovation. This platform provides this information for over 3,000 counties and all economic development districts in the United States.
“Since its inception, NERDE has proven to be a valuable resource for local leaders and development professionals pursuing evidence-based, data-driven economic development,” said Alejandra Y., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development.・Mr. Castillo stated. “Its new user-friendly interface and additional data only increase its value to users at all levels as they strive to improve the economic resilience of their communities.”
Many of the new features in NERDE are aimed at improving the user experience. Specifically, the new release presents data in a way that is more consistent with the expected use by administrators and developers. For example, this upgrade will make it easier for users to compare the strengths and weaknesses of their own community with those of neighboring communities. This is a frequently cited need by our user group, and we provide users with tools and tips to help explain why different metrics are important for resilience. Additionally, users will gain a deeper understanding of how their data can be used for analysis, planning, and grant applications.
“We really wanted to increase the value of NERDE for users in the beginner and intermediate experience categories,” said Alison Turner, senior economic development fellow at Argonne University. “This new release is therefore focused on using narrative elements to provide more context about the data, rather than simply providing the data itself.”
This upgrade also includes a redesigned local snapshot called “My Community Report.” This tool provides the types of metrics that may be of interest to novice or occasional users. Metrics are selected based on the user's geographic location (for example, rural or urban). Users can explore data at the neighborhood level or create custom development districts to select and analyze multiple counties simultaneously.
In addition to adding functionality, the new version of NERDE provides more types of data. Users can now access Argonne's Economic Development Capability Index (EDCI) information along with other his NERDE data. View metrics related to patent claims and small business innovation research grants. These statistics provide insight into the region's innovation and small business development activities. Users can also access data and maps on the potential risks posed to local communities by climate change. You can also analyze U.S. Census trade data at the state level. More advanced users will now have access to all this data through a redesigned application programming interface. This creates a one-stop shop for community-level economic data.
In fact, the U.S. Census played a key role in the NERDE upgrade. The NERDE development team participated in his 12-week technology development sprint focused on building a data platform for civil servants. This sprint was part of The Opportunity Project (TOP) at the U.S. Census Bureau's Open Innovation Lab.
“TOP Sprints helped us gain insights from multiple user groups operating within local economic development and local policy-making circles,” said Carmella Burdi, Geographic Information Systems and Data Analytics Group Leader at Argonne. says. “These insights have helped us identify enhancements that can help a variety of users more easily and effectively increase the economic resilience of their communities.”
All of NERDE's new features aim to build on the tool's continued success as an essential resilience-building tool. Join his NERDE development team for a comprehensive training webinar on Tuesday, March 5th at 12pm CT or Monday, March 18th at 2pm CT. Both webinars contain the same information, so choose a date and time that works for you. Register here to receive the meeting link.
If you would like to learn more about what NERDE and other National Economic Research and Resilience Center tools can do for economic growth in your community, please visit this link.
Argonne National Laboratory Seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national research laboratory, Argonne conducts cutting-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific field. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers at hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state, and local agencies to solve specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership, and make the nation better. We provide support to prepare for a better future. Argonne, which has employees from more than 60 countries, is managed by his UChicago Argonne, LLC of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit https:// ener gy .gov/sc ience.
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