Evidence Project

President Alger joined the council to collaborate with peer institutions and to promote research-informed civic engagement. A recent example of American University’s commitment to public impact research is the Civic Life Initiative, which builds on the university’s strength in civics education and promotes civic engagement through experiential learning, community events, and research opportunities. The inaugural cohort of 34 Student Civic Life Fellows, selected in early 2025, is gaining the skills needed to navigate difficult conversations in a world of deep pluralism and to more richly engage in civic life.

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Founding chair and steering committee member

With The Pew Charitable Trusts and Penn State’s own Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, President Bendapudi is chairing the council to collaborate with national leaders in envisioning the future of public impact research. Her leadership reflects Penn State’s mission as a land-grant university to leverage scholarship for positive societal change. Through Penn State’s Presidential Strategic Initiative on Public Impact Research, the university fosters a culture of research that is deeply connected to community needs and societal well-being, reaffirming higher education’s vital role in advancing public good.

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Concordia University leads a $200 million cross-sector research initiative, Volt-Age, to accelerate and scale electrification of cities and communities across Canada while it actively decarbonizes its own campuses. The university also recently launched Pathways to Impact, an integrated service helping researchers maximize their work’s societal, environmental, and scientific impact. President Carr is eager to collaborate with other institutions to strengthen the role universities play in building a more just, equitable, and prosperous future for everyone.

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Steering committee member

President Emeritus Cauce has helped ensure that the University of Washington remains a world leader in advancing the public interest through research that tackles society’s most critical and pressing challenges. This includes cutting-edge science, such as the Nobel-prize winning work of Dr. David Baker, whose Institute for Protein Design is developing new proteins with custom functions that solve challenges in medicine, technology, and the environment. As a council steering committee member, Cauce is helping strengthen and accelerate the role of research in shaping evidence-based policy and helping ensure that university research benefits all people and communities.

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Steering committee member

Guided by an ambitious academic master plan and its four pillars of excellence (scholarly leadership, innovative research, student success, and community engagement), Rutgers–New Brunswick is embracing a new vision of public impact research and elevating publicly and community-engaged scholarship. Chancellor Conway is helping the council promote cross-disciplinary collaboration and strengthen the role of research that serves the common good.

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Portland State University centers public impact research as part of its strategic imperative to drive its region’s economic, social, and cultural resurgence. PSU’s Research and Graduate Studies Roadmap to 2030 clearly charts a path to advancing public impact research excellence, empowering graduate education, and fostering innovation. The roadmap outlines priorities such as creating an Institute for Public Impact Research to expand community-engaged scholarship and establishing supports for graduate mentorship and research development. Together, these initiatives reinforce PSU’s strategy to embed public impact research into the institution’s research infrastructure and long-term planning.

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Rice University’s work in pioneering early detection technologies for cancers of the cervix, gastrointestinal tract, and mouth is an example of the institution’s commitment to public impact research. Early detection saves lives and reduces the financial burden of treatment. Through President DesRoches’ partnership with the council, Rice aims to bridge research and action, ensuring that scholarship drives meaningful change in its local communities and beyond.

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President Eighmy joined the council to collaborate with peer institutions equally passionate about the critical role that public impact research universities play in partnerships that create and apply knowledge to improve the world. Through collaborative and multidisciplinary research hubs, such as the Brain Health Consortium, The University of Texas at San Antonio is unveiling life-changing discoveries in artificial intelligence and brain health to prevent disorders, promote development, and restore and improve brain function.

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Membership in the council helps give Prairie View A&M University the continued impetus to connect research with practical application, ensuring that academic inquiry leads to significant improvements in all communities, particularly those that have been underserved and marginalized. The university’s research addresses complex societal challenges and actively involves students in knowledge co-creation.

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At the University of California, Berkeley, public impact research is an inherent, inseparable part of the school’s mission and ethos. Chancellor Lyons enthusiastically joined the council in recognition of the collaboration needed to strengthen, protect, and sustain the ability of university research to remain an extraordinary societal asset. UC Berkeley welcomes all and any efforts that can help translate academic discoveries into policies, practices, technologies, goods, and services that advance the health, well-being, and security of the American people.

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(Interim council representative)

With nearly 300,000 students across 10 campuses, the University of California system is committed to advancing public impact research and innovation that provides long-term societal and economic benefits to the state, the nation, and the world. Provost Newman and her colleagues are deeply engaged in training the next generation of leaders to address pressing societal challenges, particularly by deploying innovative approaches for recognizing the value of public impact research in faculty evaluation.

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President Paxson has demonstrated an enduring commitment to research that advances knowledge and understanding. She has led the creation and growth of centers and institutes that connect researchers and scholars to confront critical 21st-century issues—in areas spanning neuroscience, environmental and climate studies, economics, international and public policy, and humanistic studies—and to translate science and technology to find treatments and cures for disease.

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Steering committee member

In his Indenture of Trust that led to the establishment of Duke University, James B. Duke expressed a desire for the university to foster social and economic development and promote human happiness. Just over one hundred years later, President Price has advanced a strategic vision that deepens service to society through teaching, scholarship, and engagement—including through the university’s new Center for Community-Engaged Scholarship, which facilitates scholarship in collaboration with community members. Through the council, Price hopes to inspire more public impact research and build understanding of its role within universities and communities.

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The University at Albany—one of the nation’s most diverse public research universities—has established and strengthened research centers in areas such as social and health equity, eliminating minority health disparities, artificial intelligence and mental health, and youth justice. Through these and other initiatives, UAlbany strives to serve as an engine of opportunity and conduct groundbreaking research that benefits its diverse community on campus, in the region, and globally.

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President Tromp believes universities have a fundamental responsibility to conduct research that impacts their communities and the world. Whether it is using social media data and human engagement to understand activities that fight depression, developing a smartphone app to identify early warnings of toxicity from cancer chemotherapy, making classrooms in rural communities the hub for an array of family services, or studying the history of the “back-to-the-land” movement to better understand America, the University of Vermont is doing critical work. As a flagship land-grant university, it serves Vermonters and beyond, and its partnership with institutions in the council who are also committed to making the world a better place helps advance this critical mission.

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With eight state-funded research centers of excellence, Morgan State University drives place-based innovation addressing intractable challenges in such areas as public health, economic mobility, education, environmental sustainability, and social justice. As a leading public urban research university, Morgan plays a national role in shaping the future of inclusive, solution-oriented scholarship, ensuring that research not only advances knowledge but also uplifts communities and creates lasting societal impact.

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