Research Coordination
Staff from the Institute for Social Transformation provide a wide variety of support to our faculty fellows from grant development through community-engaged project coordination. Our staff community-engaged experts provide cross-sector partner coordination, project administration, and even work with public stakeholders and communities on setting research agendas, data collection, analysis, publication, and developing workshops and trainings to support common goals.
To receive staff support, projects must have a compelling public interest element and involve faculty members from UC Santa Cruz’s Social Sciences Division. Our staff have particular expertise in supporting community and stakeholder engagement and coordinating large, complex projects and events, such as state contracts.
Institute staff who support our faculty fellows are supervised by Institute leadership, which allows principal investigators to receive the benefits of this labor without taking on additional hiring or management responsibilities. Faculty members who are interested in receiving support from our staff should ideally reach out starting from the very first phases of project proposal and planning. This increases the odds that we’ll be able to work together and helps ensure that projects receive the full benefits of a collaboration with the Institute toward advancing their societal impact.
Services we offer
Public engagement
- Our staff can serve as a liaison between your project and its stakeholders throughout the research process, facilitating outreach and networking and building and maintaining equitable partnerships with community organizations.
- We can help to plan effective public education and engagement events that advance the impact goals of your project. This might include coordinating speakers’ series, keynotes, webinars, convenings, and other types of events that uplift the work of faculty alongside community partners, students and other stakeholders.
- We support development of and web-hosting for public information, resources, reports, video series, and tools resulting from your project, so that outcomes can be applied by policymakers, the public, and leaders across the private sector.
Grant proposal coordination
- Our staff can integrate a focus on human-centered design throughout your proposal and the project lifecycle.
- We review proposal narratives to integrate stakeholder and community aspirations and goals, while ensuring alignment with funder priorities.
- Funding for Institute staff time can be written into your proposal. This allows you to tap our expertise to advance stakeholder and community engagement on your project.
Project logistics
- We can help manage your internal communications to facilitate collaboration processes among project partners.
- Our staff can assist with your project’s financial planning and help you identify resource, logistical, staffing, and technical needs associated with your intended deliverables.
- We provide technical advice and support with processing vendor and individual partner payments.
- Institute staff can assist with developing an appropriate Scope of Work for community partners that enables effective sharing of financial resources.
Research operations
- Our specialized research staff support principal investigators with secondary data collection and analysis.
- We can help with effective design and implementation of survey tools, interviews, and focus groups and navigating Institutional Review Board (IRB) processes for human subjects research, including advising on ethical data management practices.
- Institute staff provide writing assistance for technical reports and academic publications.
Specialized workshops and trainings
- Our expert staff can train members of your research team on best practices for working ethically with communities and developing mutually beneficial goals.
- We also conduct training with community partners and stakeholders to translate research findings into integrated solutions by linking academic research to applications in community organizing and advocacy campaign strategy.
- We support project-aligned community members and organizations with capacity-building tools, training, and resources, establishing a solid foundation from which to advance solutions together.
Impact stories
Leading Salton Sea restoration planning
Institute staff worked alongside faculty fellow Brent Haddad on a major state grant to evaluate the feasibility of importing water to refill the Salton Sea, a polluted, rapidly shrinking lake. The dry lakebed releases dust that may harm human health, but potential restoration approaches are both costly and complex. The Institute provided logistical, operations, and public engagement support for the project while an independent review panel and research support team evaluated proposed water importation concepts. They ultimately settled on a restoration plan that would stabilize the lake at a new lower water level.
Empowering equitable economic development
Since 2022, The Institute for Social Transformation has supported the Community Economic Mobilization Initiative (CEMI), an effort funded by The Center at Sierra Health Foundation that bolsters the capacity of community-based organizations to lead equitable economic development in their regions. Faculty fellow Chris Benner and Institute staff have helped lead the initiative’s technical assistance team, applying principles from Benner’s “Solidarity Economics” framework to tools, training, and workshops. This support has helped organizations form regional problem-solving networks and tap into external funding sources.
How to partner with us
Faculty members considering new community-centered research grant proposals should reach out to Executive Director Ned LeBlond. Together, we can discuss your approach, integrate Institute support into proposals and budgets, and help you simplify your next steps. If you decide to work with the Institute, we can help with proposal development and award coordination.
Please also ensure that you have looped in research development staff from the Social Sciences Division and the Office of Research. Our team will coordinate with the appropriate contacts in those units. For further support with private fundraising, you can also contact Mary McCormack, director of development for the Social Sciences Division.