Civic Innovation Challenge 2022

Metrolab Network, Inc., Arlington VA

Investigators

Abstract

This cooperative agreement with MetroLab Network supports the execution of the second iteration of the Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) program, a national research and action competition driven by community priorities and supported by NSF together with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy. CIVIC aims to flip the community-university dynamic, prioritizing community-led partnership by asking communities to identify civic priorities ripe for innovation and to partner with researchers to address those priorities. CIVIC helps bridge the gap between research and deployment, ensuring that research is conducted in a context that allows for realistic testing and evaluation of impact, and on an accelerated 1-year timeline to ensure communities can experience and iterate on the results of the pilot. This challenge will enable data-driven, research-informed communities to engage residents in the process, and lay a foundation for a broader and more fluid exchange of research interests and civic priorities that will create new instances of collaboration while introducing new areas of technical and social scientific discovery. MetroLab supports this effort in multiple ways. First, MetroLab is building a Community of Practice among the project teams, from both the first and current round of the program. Building this community among experts working on first-of-its-kind projects across the country promotes the sustainability, scalability and transferability of all awarded projects. It further enables grantees to learn from each other in a way that will amplify project successes and sustain community impacts. This Community of Practice is expected to live on beyond the scope of the CIVIC grant and serve as a platform for future collaborations. MetroLab is also producing tool kits and workshops to support awarded CIVIC team, focusing on community engagement, stakeholder analysis, and pilot management. MetroLab also supports communications and amplification of team successes throughout the grant, in addition to hosting a website that showcases the growing portfolio of civic research work supported by the CIVIC program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.