SYRACUSE — CenterState CEO and the Brookings Institution on Nov. 7 released a metropolitan-business plan that identifies five “key” findings with “clear” implications for “redefining the region’s economic profile.”

That’s how the organizations described the report, titled “CenterState Agenda for Economic Opportunity,” which they released during an event at Syracuse Stage.

The report, which was “developed collaboratively,” follows research conducted over the past year-and-a-half, Robert Simpson, president of CenterState CEO said during his remarks.

Simpson provided an “overview of some of the lead initiatives that we think we need to be working on … in fact, we already are working on to implement … that we think can help drive the community forward.”

The report found the region holds “strong potential to excel” in new technology fields and that growth in global markets can boost the region’s exports, CenterState CEO said in a news release about the report.

It also found the region’s innovation ecosystem is still emerging and requires new investment, and that the region must retain and expand a skilled workforce, grow economic opportunity, and develop employer-driven approaches to align workers and jobs.

The report also found that the present-day economy requires modernizing local government.

Based on the findings, the report also recommends eight strategies that are designed to drive growth, build synergies, and create “a new center of gravity for the next economy,” the organizations said in the news release.

They include positioning the region as a global center for data-to-decisions (D2D) firms, people, and ideas. That effort will include establishing the Data to Decisions Innovation Alliance to “catalyze growth through research, product, and market development and attraction of world-class talent,” CenterState CEO said.

D2D firms are working in a sector that’s a $145 billion global market that’s going to grow by another $100 billion over the course of the next five years, Simpson said.

“And our companies here, whether they be medical-device companies, environmental-technology companies, [or] cyber-security companies can compete effectively in that field,” he said.

The task of the upcoming Data to Decisions Innovation Alliance is to identify market opportunities and to understand who those customers are, who are demanding goods and services, and to connect our companies locally into those markets and into those business opportunities, Simpson said.

The strategies also include efforts to “strengthen the region’s position as a leader” in cybersecurity, thermal, and environmental-control systems, and agribusiness.

Additionally, they include efforts to grow exports and foreign-direct investment and to implement the Metropolitan Export Initiative to double regional exports in five years, the report said.

“We know this region, our 12-county geography, [with its] $8.7 billion in exports … about 11-and-a-half percent of our total economic output is coming in the form of exports,” Simpson said.

The figure is still “underperforming” the national average, which is closer to 13 or 13-and-a-half percent, Simpson said.

Since CenterState CEO started working on this initiative just a couple years ago, exports out of the Syracuse metro area have increased 28 percent increase, he adds.

The strategies also include an effort to build out an ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship and launch a regional seed and venture fund that would offer investment support for the region’s emerging companies.

Simpson points to the Syracuse Technology Garden, which is “100 percent occupied,” but also the ongoing work at Syracuse University and all the college and universities in the CenterState CEO footprint

Despite the demand for entrepreneurship coming from students and mid-career professionals, those involved in economic development continually stumble upon the same problem, Simpson said.

“Our region does not attract the venture funding that we need to support the long-term growth of our entrepreneurial and our innovation assets,” he added.

Simpson believes the region needs to create its own seed and venture fund because Central New York has a “growing pool of investment-ready companies,” which could benefit from such a fund to connect them to talent and markets around the globe.

The strategies also include developing employer-driven approaches to align workers and jobs; setting priorities for infrastructure investments and improvements; cultivating “opportunity-rich” environments by developing market-rate housing; and building “effective” public and civic institutions and culture, including the development of a commission on government modernization, according to the report.

CenterState CEO listed 18 organizations, including itself, Syracuse University, Mohawk Valley EDGE, and the Central New York Community Foundation, that provided financial support for the report.

The full market analysis that produced the report is available at www.centerstateopportunity.com, according to CenterState CEO.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com