By David Gard, assistant vice president for economic development, Indiana University
As the state’s largest public research university, Indiana University recognizes as a core obligation its responsibility to actively engage in the life of the state and serve to benefit all Hoosiers.
IU possesses a vast repertoire of intellectual and creative assets in all parts of Indiana. Connecting these with strategic opportunities to foster economic growth requires coordinated engagement across all IU campuses. The IU Council for Regional Engagement and Economic Development, or CREED, is instrumental in facilitating this coordination.
CREED was launched in 2010 under the Innovate Indiana initiative. Council members represent all IU campuses across the state: IU Bloomington, IUPUI, IUPU Columbus, IU East, IU Fort Wayne, IU Kokomo, IU Northwest, IU South Bend and IU Southeast. It has grown to become one of the university’s signature economic development resources.
CREED has achieved several notable successes:
- It played an instrumental role in IU being designated an Innovation and Economic Prosperity University by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities in 2014.
- It established and manages the Regional Economic Development, or RED, Fund. It has directly supported and enabled 32 programs, initiatives or events to be held on IU campuses benefiting faculty, staff and the community. Without RED Fund support, some of these programs might not have come to fruition.
- It has served as a best-practice model for other institutions to emulate and benchmark.
CREED has met quarterly since being established. It will meet in the Indiana Memorial Union on the IU Bloomington campus this month to discuss several topics, including the newly established IU Center for Rural Engagement, the 2018 Indiana General Assembly and regional economic development projects. We will have much more news to share in the coming months, as CREED impacts the lives of Hoosiers across the state.
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