Annual Reports

Over the last forty years, our organization has established a strong record and reputation for our objective research on a wide range of topics, though much has changed about Greater Worcester.

Making an impact is a crucial part of the Bureau’s mission, to inform the public and policymakers of critical opportunities and challenges facing Greater Worcester. Our research is always conducted objectively and apolitically, but with the purpose of real-world relevancy.

Much has changed in Worcester since 1985 when the Worcester Regional Research Bureau was founded, but we have had an unchanging commitment to our mission, “to instruct the public as to the organization, activities, finances and administrative or operational problems of Greater Worcester, through non-partisan, nonpolitical and impartial research.”

Over the last year, we are proud to report that the Bureau has built on our long tradition of contributing thought-provoking research and analysis on some of the most pressing issues impacting Greater Worcester’s continued prosperity.

Dear Friends of the Research Bureau, In 2020, we saw the Greater Worcester community come together like never before, resulting in Bloomberg News ranking our city #2 in New England and #8 nationally “for a relatively strong recovery from the coronavirus recession”.

Dear Friends of the Research Bureau, There is no question that the past year marked unprecedented challenges due to the global pandemic and its impact on our local community. Without hesitation, Worcester and its regional leaders pulled together and did whatever it took to keep our community strong.

Dear Friends of The Research Bureau, The Worcester Regional Research Bureau is celebrating 34 years of conducting independent, non-partisan research and analysis of public policy issues to promote informed public debate and decision making in Greater Worcester.

This year, we celebrate the incredible diversity of our region and the increasing need to expand the community conversation beyond the traditional boardroom. Nationally, our society is struggling to acknowledge, address, and move forward past generations of exclusion.

Dear Friends of The Research Bureau, Worcester, like our nation, is working to find its place in a modern, pluralistic society. It is working to engage a diverse, informed electorate. It is working to encourage economic opportunity, including jobs and affordable housing. It is working to provide quality education for our young people.

The secret of The Research Bureau’s success is its ability to forge relationships with diverse constituencies and to collaborate with others who share common goals of revitalizing and restoring prosperity to the Worcester region.

It is hard to believe that about eighteen months have passed since The Research Bureau re-located to the campus of Assumption College. This annual report provides a fitting occasion to illustrate through photographs and text the nature of the partnership that is developing with the College.

Each year, every year for the past twenty-three years, The Research Bureau has enlivened our local marketplace of ideas. Forums have been presented that are meant to educate, illuminate or provoke. Reports have been researched and drafted that aim to cogently explain issues which are or should be on the radar screens of our reigning Zeitgeist.

For many years, the Bureau has been analyzing the delivery of municipal services and identifying unsustainable cost structures. In the pages that follow, we identify some of those issues and the public policies we advocated to address them.

We have chosen to focus this message on two specific projects of the past year that capture the essence of what we have been working toward all these years.

The secret of The Research Bureau’s success is its ability to forge relationships with diverse constituencies and to collaborate with others who share common goals of revitalizing and restoring prosperity to the Worcester region.

Each year, every year for the past twenty-three years, The Research Bureau has enlivened our local marketplace of ideas. Forums have been presented that are meant to educate, illuminate or provoke. Reports have been researched and drafted that aim to cogently explain issues which are or should be on the radar screens of our reigning Zeitgeist.

A simple phrase often used is: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” For almost 22 years, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau has provided the public with access to “the measures” that serve as the basis for debate and discussion… all leading to decisions that make our community a better place in which to live, work and play.