Project Objectives

During the first year of its operation, this initiative will strive to achieve the following goals:

1. Create six local CBR Network and one regional regional consortia consisting of colleges and universities, in six regions throughout the United States, that are dedicated to engaging their faculty members and students in community based research, and non-profits organizations in the same area.
   
   
2. Create the seven Centers for Campus-Community Partnerships lead by the City Network Steering Committees and staffed by campus and community staff.
   
   
3. Through training workshops, technical assistance, and mini-grants, the City Networks will improve the capacity of member campuses to conduct community-based research in partnership with community organizations. The targeted campuses include those listed in the Campus Participants appendix.
   
   
4. Similarly, the CBR City Networks will provide training workshops, technical assistance, and research assistance to area non-profit organizations to build their capacity to gather, analyze, and manage information for internal management and strategic planning and external advocacy efforts.
   
   
5. Facilitate a total of 140 community research projects by teams of campus and community researchers that respond to specific requests from non-profit organizations based in the City Network regions.
   
   
6. Create and operate a web site that would allow faculty and students from any of the participating schools, as well as non profit leaders, to share resources, information, and publicize both requests for research and the published results.
   
   
7. Partner with the Youth Policy Institute to prototype the national and regional CORPSnet web sites, an on-going monitoring and reporting resource which would provide regularly updated, web-accessible policy news and information related to community development, education, and the environment.
   
   
8. Organize a national conference on community-based action research to inform, recruit, and begin training interested campus and community partners. We would invite faculty members, administrators and students from the higher education institutions listed in the appendix as well staff from the non profit and community organizations located in each City Network region. Other interested parties would also be invited to attend.