Summer Research on Texas & Louisiana Communities

The IC² Institute’s summer research team will investigate more than 60 selected cities, examine current assets and challenges in those cities, and create community asset summaries for use in developing recovery strategies.  Communities selected for this research project can expect the following:

  • An IC² student employee will speak with the primary contact for the community–typically the leader of an economic development organization or municipal department.  This initial conversation will take about 45 minutes.  Follow-up calls may be needed.  During the conversation, the community contact is expected to provide information on the community as well as sources of additional information–other people to call, online resources, and avenues of inquiry to explore.
  • Other members of the community will be interviewed.  The list of interviewees will be customized to community needs but is expected to include individuals who work in the public sector for the community (librarians, parks department, council representatives, educators, etc.) as well as individuals working in the private sector (small business owners, Chamber of Commerce representatives, large employers, local industry stakeholders, etc.).
  • IC² will distribute a link to an online survey.  The anonymous survey will ask questions about satisfaction with aspects of the community, how important aspects of the community are to the resident, and how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting the resident. We seek as many responses from community members as possible, and we hope to have a representative pool of survey respondents that mirrors the demographics of the community.
  • Data-gathering will occur between June 1 and July 31, after which IC² will synthesize the data into a useful report.  Each community will receive a report from IC² in August.
  • Communities who participate in this research effort will be invited to join IC²’s “XLR8” online training program in September.  During this program, best practices, approaches to solvable problems, and the data collected over the summer can be discussed in detail.

Detailed info for communities on Regional Economic Recovery >

Link to UT Austin research approval and informed consent for participating community members

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