International Regions Benchmarking Consortium

The Prosperity Partnership understands that while comparing ourselves to our peer regions in the U.S. is important, it is also valuable to look beyond our national borders and benchmark ourselves against comparable regions around the world.

In 2008, the PSRC and the Trade Development Alliance developed the first-ever International Regions Benchmarking Consortium. This Consortium is a network of sophisticated city-centered metropolitan regions that find it mutually beneficial to compare and learn from each other through economic and social data statistics and in-depth research into specific issues of common interest. Microsoft and Boeing each provided substantial funding to launch the Consortium.

The member regions of the Consortium are:

 1.  Barcelona, Spain
 2.  Daejeon, South Korea
 3.  Dublin, Ireland
 4.  Fukuoka, Japan
 5.  Helsinki, Finland
 6.  Melbourne, Australia
 7.  Munich, Germany
 8.  Seattle, USA
 9.  Stockholm, Sweden
10.  Vancouver, Canada

Each year the consortium holds an annual meeting hosted by one of the member regions and attended by delegations from each of the member regions. The Puget Sound region hosted the first such meeting in June 2008 and Barcelona hosted in November 2009. A report related to the theme of the conference is developed each year.

Cities and Regions in a Global Innovation Economy
The Innovative Region | Seattle, USA |
June 2008

A Tale of Ten Cities: Attracting and Retaining Talent
Creativity and Talent in an Urban Environment | Barcelona, Spain | November 2009







Contact
For more information, contact Joan Chen, jchen@psrc.org, 206-389-2889. Or visit www.internationalregions.org.