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The research literature on government innovation suggests that evidence about the efficacy of state and local policies is more likely to lead to policy reform if state and local governments are engaged as partners on the research projects generating that evidence. Yet researchers often pursue policy evaluations without government partners, potentially undermining the policy relevance and impact of their findings.

At the same time, universities typically invest in developing and maintaining close relationships with state and local governments through their offices of government and community relations. Yet these offices generally have little interaction with the research communities on university campuses. Leveraging universities’ existing relationships with their neighboring state and local governments could potentially foster more policy innovation research partnerships.

A small number of policy innovation initiatives at member institutions in the Social Science Research Council’s College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, including MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab North America, the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab and Education Lab, the University of California’s California Policy Lab, and Harvard University’s The People Lab, facilitate policy innovation research partnerships, and in several cases have led to evidence-based policy reform. Yet these initiatives engage only a small fraction of the potential policy innovation research partnerships that are possible. 

Working with the 86 campuses in the Social Science Research Council’s College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, we have developed an initiative designed to incubate more policy innovation research partnerships. Colleges and universities in the SSRC’s consortium will be given the opportunity to work with their offices of government and community relations to identify neighboring state and local governmental agencies seeking reliable evidence about the efficacy of their programs and policies. Representatives from these agencies will be invited to member institution campuses to engage with research experts in policy evaluation. Post-convening outreach will support the development of funded policy innovation research partnerships. Annual convenings of the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences will enable convening participants to share experiences and insights.

 By incubating more policy innovation research partnerships aimed at producing rigorous evidence about the efficacy of state and local governments’ programs and policies, this Agenda Fund initiative will potentially accelerate state and local government innovation.

Incubating Policy Innovation Research Partnerships

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