Cities are often on the front lines of solving difficult and complex social issues such as affordable housing, mental health, and digital equity. Universities can serve as a key partner, producing cutting-edge research, ideas, and technology that could help cities solve some of these complex issues. And yet, there is a disconnect between local government programs and policies and research.
Why?
We believe for two primary reasons:
MetroLab aims to equip cities with science and research. And with philanthropic support, MetroLab is producing a national body of work called the Local Government R&D Agenda: a list of identified priority research areas that can address local governments’ complex issues and needs.
MetroLab aims to do this by working with a select number of cities and hosting workshops with nearby universities and colleges to ask the question “if you could get research on [blank], what would you want?”. By intentionally bringing these key stakeholders together, we can produce actionable research addressing complex challenges. For example:
– What if R&D efforts reduced the cost of affordable housing in half?
– What if city councils received draft policy language to make starting a business as easy as getting a driver’s license?
– What if we discovered ways to expedite recovery funds delivery to low- to moderate-income neighborhoods, reducing wait times after a disaster event?
Over the next several months, MetroLab will host interviews and workshops with 20 different communities, including city departmental leadership, community stakeholders, and university partners. At the conclusion of the city-hosted workshops, MetroLab will work with federal agencies and congressional stakeholders to fund projects that would directly support and address the Local Government R&D Agenda. We hope to bring those projects back to cities, with MetroLab serving as a matchmaker of research and programmatic outcomes back to the local communities we partner with. Ultimately, we aim to change the dynamic between local governments and the research community – empowering cities and counties to procure and prioritize research, while working with the university community to ensure research outputs work harmoniously with local government processes. MetroLab is developing a steering committee that will help oversee this work, and will continue to work with additional partners to ensure the Local Government R&D Agenda is a trusted and action-oriented document that will empower projects and innovations to come.
