For immediate release: September 23, 2010
Atlanta will be home to a U.S. Census Bureau Research Data Center, one of only 10 in the nation. The Atlanta Census Research Data Center (ACRDC) will offer approved researchers access to U.S. Census Bureau survey data. A consortium of institutions partnered to provide support for the ACRDC and coordinate ongoing operations.
Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies led the effort to secure the center, working to obtain funding from the National Science Foundation to cover some of the ACRDC's start-up costs and coordinating the efforts to create the consortium of supporting partners, which includes the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Georgia and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The center will be housed at the Atlanta Fed.
Julie Hotchkiss, a research economist at the Atlanta Fed and an Andrew Young School adjunct professor, will be executive director of the new center. Its governance board will include representatives from each of the consortium institutions.
"Researchers approved by the U.S. Census Bureau will be able to access non-public government data for stronger, policy-relevant analysis not otherwise possible," said Barry Hirsch, the project's principal investigator and an Andrew Young School economics professor. "The ACRDC enhances the strength of our local research community across the spectrum of social, economic and health research."
The U.S. Census Bureau's selection for the ACRDC places Atlanta among the exclusive number of data center locations that include Boston, New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., and universities including UCLA, UC-Berkeley, Michigan, Cornell and Duke.