| Center for Civic Innovation (CCI) |
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| 1045 W. Washington St., South Bend, IN 46601 www.civicinnovation.nd.edu Contact: Jay Brockman, jbb@nd.edu |
Education and Research | |
| Role(s) | • Support Notre Dame Engineering students, with an emphasis on underrepresented groups, by providing opportunities to apply technical and social skills to real-world civic and industry projects requiring innovative, interdisciplinary solutions. • Support Notre Dame Engineering faculty research by defining and executing projects that advance the state of the art in research and have community impact. Research areas include safe and affordable housing, urban environmental sustainability and resilience, and equitable access to health and well-being. • Support the regional community by leveraging campus and community assets to design inclusive programming focused on innovative approaches to community-identified civic and industry issues. |
| Mission | The mission of CCI is to address community-identified civic priorities in our region by integrating principles of design and innovation from engineering and the social sciences into interdisciplinary research and education projects. |
| History | 2015 – First Interns are hired within the UND College of Engineering to work on community-engaged projects full-time for the summer 2016 – National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education grant awarded to PI Jay Brockman supporting development of Community-Engaged Educational Ecosystem Model 2018 – The University of Notre Dame College of Engineering, Office of Research, and IDEA Center invest in the creation of the Center for Civic Innovation at Notre Dame 2021 – Operates a sustainable summer internship program including 50+ K-12 and college interns from across the South Bend-Elkhart region; leads and supports multidisciplinary research efforts with federal and regional foundation support. |
| Org | Team of six full-time personnel including Director (faculty), Associate Director of Research (faculty), Managing Director (staff), two Internship Program Managers (staff), and Administrative Assistant Quarter-time Assistant Director for Community Health and Policy (faculty) Group of 14 Faculty Affiliates across College of Engineering, College of Science, College of Business, and College of Arts & Letters Leadership: • Jay Brockman, Director (jbb@nd.edu) • Alisa Zornig Gura: Managing Director (azornig2@nd.edu) • Danielle Wood: Associate Director for Research (dwood@nd.edu) |
| Board | CCI’s Steering Committee includes: • Patricia Culligan, PhD (Dean, College of Engineering) • Robert Bernhard, PhD (Vice President for Research) • Timothy Sexton (Associate Vice President for Public Affairs) • Bryan Ritchie, PhD (Vice president and Cathy and John Martin Associate Provost for Innovation) |
| Finance | Funding of $250,000 from external grants for internships Funding of $450,000 for operations Research grants vary annually (average $1.5M) |
| Data Source | Use Indiana Data Partnership Use Indiana Department of Education Data Produce primary data on food pantries and neighborhood housing and lot conditions for datamichiana platform (https://datamichiana-notredame.hub.arcgis.com). |
| Data Access | Currently, GIS layers are not held publicly but will be part of the datamichiana platform (https://datamichiana-notredame.hub.arcgis.com). |
| Tech Capabilities | Primary data collection with handheld devices Data aggregation from secondary sources Data cleaning |
| Projects | Average 14 community-engaged projects annually in the areas of safe and affordable housing, urban environmental sustainability and resilience, and equitable access to health and well-being. |
| Future Focus | Bringing better public access to data we create via datamichiana platform (https://datamichiana-notredame.hub.arcgis.com). |
| Talent Development | Internships for K-12 and college students Mentoring opportunities for STEM professionals Community-engaged project management for K-12 teachers |
| Data Sharing Agreements | In process with MACOG (Michiana Area Council of Governments), and ISDP (Indiana Data Partnership) |
| Programs/ Publications | Annual reports: https://civicinnovation.nd.edu/assets/407143/2020_cci_internship_annual_report.pdf News: https://civicinnovation.nd.edu/news/ Publications: https://civicinnovation.nd.edu/research/research-publications |
| Resources | https://civicinnovation.nd.edu/ |