Public Impact Accelerator

Historically, public universities have played a foundational role in the civic life of their communities. Yet the erosion of trust in higher education has called into question the value of public universities in service to their communities. To rebuild trust, we must demonstrate and deliver more value to our state and local community partners. Schools of public affairs and policy at R1 public institutions are uniquely equipped to lead the way in defining, enabling, delivering and documenting public impact.

Public impact research is a broad term that encompasses any research that is intended to not only produce scholarly impact but to also deliver value to the public. Public affairs scholars are particularly good at producing this type of research because of our knowledge of the policy process, and operation of public, nonprofit, and private institutions in the public square. Yet we’ve been less good at sharing how we do this and documenting our impact. Now is the time to change that. Our aim is to leverage the unique expertise of public affairs schools to increase the capacity of our universities to deliver and document public impact research that serves our state & local communities. What is needed to activate this capacity is a strong network across peer R1 public institutions—an effort we are calling The Public Impact Accelerator. Through our collective work, we will help rebuild trust in higher education by delivering real value to the state and local communities we serve.