A Harvard University academic once poked fun at Pittsburgh's compulsion to study itself. Stop doing reports and act, he told an earnest crowd, noting that in just a few years, various Pittsburgh groups had commissioned at least 26 reports identifying the region's strengths and offering advice on how to solve its economic woes.

That was five years ago -- and the reports are still coming. The continuous studies have prompted some to joke that producing reports may just be the region's biggest growth industry, and others to wonder whether Pittsburgh just needs to get over a bad case of navel gazing.

Take the latest endeavor, for example -- a 200-page analysis by the Battelle, a Columbus, Ohio-based think tank and consultant. It's in the midst of its fourth study of Pittsburgh's economic development efforts since 2001.

The report, produced in conjunction with another think tank, the California-based Milken Institute, is supposed to identify the region's strengths and weaknesses and help local leaders lay out an "action plan" for growing the region's tech sector. It was commissioned last year by the Greater Oakland Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ), an economic development conclave of 13 government, university and tech-support group officials that is funded by the state and local foundations.

Costing $425,000, the report, six months in the making, establishes many of the same goals that past studies have set, all of which have looked at how Pittsburgh can reinvent itself from steel city to technology hub. These include a 500-page, 1997 report by consultants McKinsey & Co. on reshaping the local economy; a 2001 report by Silicon Valley consultant and author Douglas Henton encouraging entrepreneurship and collaboration; a 2001 report by Battelle on jump-starting the region's biotech industry; a 2003 study by Battelle assessing the region's biotech sector space needs; and another Battelle study in 2004, an abbreviated assessment of the region's tech-based economic development efforts.

This time is different, said Don Smith Jr., director of the University Partnership, a joint economic development venture between the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, and chairman of the Oakland KIZ.

He promises that the final version of the latest Battelle report, due in June, will "change the way we do things to promote tech growth in this region."

Pittsburgh isn't over-studied, Dr. Smith said. "I think we are under implemented."

Some of the area's woes dating back more than a decade were never solved, he said, citing such issues as a small pool of venture capital and startup executives -- shortfalls highlighted in a 1993 White Paper issued by former CMU President Robert Mehrabian.

It's not as if Pittsburgh has been all-study, no-action.

For instance, several pointers from the 2004 Battelle draft advising Pittsburgh tech-support groups to streamline their process and collaborate have been implemented, say local tech industry executives.

And Battelle's biotech blueprint yielded the executive-in-residence program that brings the expertise of seasoned biotech managers to local startups through the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse -- a state- and foundation-supported agency aimed at aiding growth of local biotech companies.

Others suggestions haven't worked out so well. When Dr. Smith pitched Battelle's recommendation to meld various tech groups into one last summer, it was publicly and privately dismissed by some tech group chiefs.

The Battelle/Milken report will capture the region's attention and mobilize it to act, Dr. Smith said. "If we don't, we will have failed."

Others aren't so sure.

Pittsburgh groups have spent too much money with too little to show for it, said CMU economist Rob A. Lowe, who himself delivered a 2004 report benchmarking the Pittsburgh's ability to bring technology to the marketplace against similar cities.

"We've spent too many resources on studies to tell us a lot of things we already know," Dr. Lowe said.

None of the studies has done a good job comparing Pittsburgh's competitive advantages over other regions, he added -- a critical component to gaining a lead in the economic development race. "You can be good but still lose out," said Dr. Lowe.

These studies aren't cheap.

The Battelle/Milken report, for example, cost $425,000, people familiar with the latest study said. Dr. Smith would not confirm the figure because the study is not finished.

A combination of "KIZ member dues and grants from local foundations" paid for the study, he added, saying the final amount will be made public when the study is completed in June. It's unclear if any state dollars provided annually to the KIZ were used.

In 2001, local groups paid Battelle between $200,000 and $250,000 for a plan to jump-start the local biotech industry, according Mark Kurtzrock, the former Pittsburgh Regional Alliance executive who chaired the effort to develop the plan.

The biotech report was worth the money, Mr. Kurtzrock said, namely because of Walt Plosila, known by insiders as the "dean of technology gurus," who leads Battelle's technology development practice and has helmed local studies.

Mr. Plosila, who was on the staff of former Gov. Richard Thornburgh and helped develop the Ben Franklin Technology Partners initiative that still funds state tech efforts today, provided a unique analysis and detail that led to the formation of the biotech greenhouse, Mr. Kurtzrock said.

The contents of Mr. Plosila's latest regional elixir from Battelle -- reportedly about 200 pages -- remain under wraps, at least to the larger community. KIZ board members, who each pay a $25,000 annual matching grant for their seat, have declined to talk about it.

Alas, Pittsburgh isn't the only region on the seemingly endless journey to understand itself, while bickering along the way.

So said Michael Porter, the Harvard academic who jokingly chided the region for its incessant self-research nearly five years ago. Back then, Dr. Porter also examined Pittsburgh's economy, paid for in part with $200,000 four local foundations.

It's typical for regions to do "study after study," he said, because they are easierthan actually doing anything.

"People can contribute money, hire someone to do the work and feel like they are doing something," he said.