The Center for Community Engaged Research
Coming soon!
In 2025, We are engaging a Design Advisory to co-design the Center for Community Engaged Research. We are convening multidisciplinary team of community scholars (youth and adults), social scientists, data scientists, and policy experts to design a model that increases community-driven democracy by:
Engaging community researchers, scholars, and university partners in conducting research and promoting the findings from community-engaged scholarship
Developing a national fellowship to build a robust community-engaged research to policy pipeline
Exploring quantitative methodologies and opportunities to center local populations in quantitative analysis
Convening community engaged research practitioners and policymakers from multiple disciplines to amplify opportunities for collective impact
In our planning year, the Design Advisory will develop the research and operational core of the center, including but not limited to: research agenda, logic model, national community-engaged fellowship model, the role of universities as partners, local and national policy advocacy pathways, role of the advisory council, sustainable financial strategy and job descriptions. The planning year will culminate in a white paper and external collateral to engage potential partners, funders, and advocates in the development of the Center.
Why Community-Engaged Research?
For centuries higher education institutions have defined knowledge production. The university as arbiter of knowledge creates a power and economic imbalance that distances the public from active democracy. As a result, traditional social science research becomes an insular, academic pursuit divorced from community experiences or expectations. Even independent think tanks and research centers that promote research-backed policy advocacy remain in academic siloes, far from the people most impacted by their recommendations.
CCER aims to transform research by bridging academic and community expertise, amplifying marginalized voices, and empowering communities to drive advocacy through their own research. This work will establish new models for democratized knowledge production, elevate more complete narratives of the human experience, and contribute to the creation of equitable futures.
“When researchers include the people they study in the process, outcomes improve.”