Regional Knowledge Network Reaches Full Build-Out; UB Regional Institute Steps Up Outreach

After two years of development, the Regional Knowledge Network (RKN) stands as a comprehensive Web portal for information on the binational Buffalo Niagara region. Serving a diverse audience of public officials, regional leaders, community activists, news media, researchers, students and citizens, RKN seeks to build understanding and guide policy making on critical regional issues. The Regional Institute is now focused on reaching out to RKN’s diverse user groups to build awareness of the site’s powerful applications. Please review RKN and contact us to share questions and comments, or arrange a demonstration for your organization.

With data spanning nine topic areas and covering Western New York, Southern Ontario and the 264 municipalities within the region, RKN links users to powerful tools to customize information requests and search, sort and analyze data, including an Address Analyzer, Community Quick Reports and Compare Communities. A significant advancement of RKN provides access to the site through two major information portals – Knowledge by Topic and Knowledge by Place - while recent data additions include the Transportation & Land Use, Environment and Civic Infrastructure topic areas.

Looking ahead, the institute is planning RKN’s next phase – “RKN Exponential” – which will add an applied knowledge feature that provides cross-topic analyses of RKN data and insightful assessments of regional performance.