The Global Resilience Institute (“GRI”) at Northeastern University has released 10 Sector-Specific Special Investigation Reports as part of an effort supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) to provide regional recommendations for COVID-19 economic recovery in New England.

Written by expert public policy researchers from Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute and MIT Lincoln Labs this past summer, these reports bring together analysis and policy recommendations in 10 cross-cutting critical areas including municipal and state budgets, housing, food, healthcare, K-12 education, childcare, higher education, small business, energy, and fisheries. Each sector-specific report provides an in-depth, accessible review of the challenges, opportunities and actionable policy considerations in each sector facing the COVID-19 crisis.

Each report provides valuable landscape-level context as well as sector-specific detail to support a broad range of funding decisions and policy priorities. Providing insights on the complexities and interconnectedness of each of these sectors, this collection of reports elevates insights in areas that are complexly interdependent and often poorly understood.

Authored by subject matter experts in these critical areas, each report reviews impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the scale of disruption across interconnecting issues. Each report also highlights policy considerations and recommendations, providing valuable context and perspective to support findings and economic recovery recommendations for the entire New England Region.

“The scale of societal and economic distribution from the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented,” said Dr. Stephen E. Flynn, Founding Director at GRI. “The depth and complexity of the economic and social impacts of the pandemic are not yet well understood. These reports give key stakeholders in the New England region a wholistic perspective to industries that greatly impact their economic recovery and sustainability.”

Since April 2020 GRI has been contracted, in collaboration with MIT Lincoln Labs, by FEMA Region 1 to conduct a Rapid Needs Assessment for each New England state that supports the completion of FEMA’s Mission Scoping Analysis of critical recovery needs as well as the states’ developing and implementing their Recovery Support Strategies.

The COVID-19 Special Investigation Reports can be found at the links below or at:  globalresilience.northeastern.edu/publications.

  1. Economic Needs of New England State and Local Governments in Pandemic Recovery
  2. Housing Insecurity in New England
  3. Food System Resilience in New England
  4. The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on the Health Care Sector in New England
  5. K-12 Education in New England
  6. The Childcare Industry in New England
  7. Higher Education in New England – Planning a Post-COVID-19 Recovery
  8. Local Business Recovery and Resilience in New England: Response to COVID-19
  9. An Equitable, Clean Energy Recovery for New England
  10. Impacts to New England’s Commercial Fisheries

About the Global Resilience Institute

Launched in 2017 with the approval of Northeastern University’s Board of Trustees, the Global Resilience Institute (GRI) is the world’s first university-wide institute to respond to the resilience imperative. Today, GRI undertakes multi-disciplinary resilience research and education efforts that draws on the latest findings from network science, health sciences, coastal and urban sustainability, engineering, cybersecurity and privacy, social and behavioral sciences, public policy, urban affairs, business, law, game design, architecture, and geospatial analysis.

Media Contact:

Global Resilience Institute
Caroline Crawford
ca.crawford@northeastern.edu