Our vision
We envision a world connected by thriving communities where shared knowledge creates fair access to purpose, power, and prosperity.
Our mission
Our mission is to understand and address social disparities by fostering trusting relationships between academic researchers and community or government partners. Centering the wisdom of community voices, we co-create research evidence that advances fair practices and policies in the places our university calls home.
Our values
Trust & Respect
We nurture transparent, authentic relationships that honor the diverse perspectives of our academic community and government partners.
Fairness & Belonging
We embrace reciprocity, grace, and radical generosity to center justice, fairness and voices that have been historically and actively excluded from public discourse, policy priorities, and investment.
Community & Wisdom
We lift up the experience of our communities to co-create research evidence and shared knowledge that reflects the needs of those most directly impacted by policy solutions.
Humility & Learning
We value all forms of knowledge, methods and disciplines in our collaborative process, ensuring rigor, quality and understanding from conception to implementation.
Impact & Meaningful Change
We cultivate tangible, measurable outcomes that advance effective practices and policies in our communities and beyond.
Our Engage-Think-Do Model
The Context:
State and city agencies face urgent but long-standing policy challenges in areas such as housing, crime, opioids, and workforce development and need the expertise and resources to find solutions that are both systemic and equitable. If you are a practitioner seeking to be connected to a Northeastern faculty member, please click here.
Universities have the expertise to design and implement smart solutions, yet these local policy challenges do not fit neatly into disciplines nor semesters, so faculty need to work collaboratively across areas and in real-time with policymakers and communities. If you are a faculty member seeking to be connected to a practitioner or policymaker, please click here.
The Model:
To bridge the gap between research and practice, C2C fosters long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships with external stakeholders that promote the co-production of policy analysis and implementation to maximize societal impact. We start by building relationships through smaller scale projects to develop trust so that the long-term partnership is already in place when policy needs and/or funding opportunities arise across any number of policy areas (e.g. housing, healthcare, workforce development).
