Innovation and creativity are at the heart of any thriving entrepreneurial community.

Through research and development activities, FERAD is committed to exploring new ways to facilitate collaboration between universities, philanthropists, government, economic development agencies and private sector industry leaders to ensure a productive environment for entrepreneurial creation, growth and sustainability.

While math and science are core elements to the successful development and maintenance of entrepreneurial ventures, there must also be a balance in educational initiatives aimed at fostering creative problem solving, envisioning new approaches to old problems, and inventing breakthrough products and technologies to productively addressing myriad economic, community and workforce development challenges.

As individuals look to improve global consciousness and performance in these critical areas as concerned citizens, FERAD will work to build consensus among members of government, academia, business and social services sectors around methodologies for bringing about productive and transformative change. Education is a prominent conduit for this process. Through research and development projects, FERAD will work to improve the impact and effectiveness of education. Areas of study include leadership roles, teaching styles, knowledge management systems, social capital building, technology applications, curricula and measuring impact and relevancy of learning processes.

A variety of research and development methodologies are required in order to attain transformative change in these areas including qualitative and quantitative studies of industry best practices and policies; conducting primary data collection through telephone and face-to-face interviews; participating in focus groups; and employing foundation business management assessment techniques and theories such as SWOT analysis, surveys, strategic planning and review of business processes.

FERAD will make available the results of its findings including reports that summarize the research processes, proposed techniques and methodologies for bringing about shared and collaborative transformative change in economic, community and workforce development outcomes.