Introducing the

Evidence and Equity Collaborative

Advancing diverse and equitable analysis to inform policymaking.

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Our Mission

About the Collaborative

The nine organizations of the Evidence and Equity Collaborative are working to support diversity in their workplaces, strengthen inclusive practices in programs and policy research, and build a foundation for equitable analysis ready to inform systems, policies, and programs across the nation.

Chief Executive Officers Convene

The chief executive officers of the Evidence & Equity Collaborative’s nine member organizations recently convened with the Collaborative’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) leaders to reflect on the Collaborative’s progress over the past two years—and envision its potential. The Collaborative was organized in 2021 by the CEOs of nine organizations in the social and behavioral science fields to support diversity in our workplaces, strengthen inclusive practices in policy research, and build a foundation for equitable analysis ready to inform policymaking.

Our Beginnings

The Collaborative Story

In the fall of 2020, the chief executive officers of nine leading policy research organizations met to discuss the critical importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field of public policy research and in their individual workplaces. The result is the Evidence and Equity Collaborative.

The first collaboration of its kind within the policy research field, the Evidence and Equity Collaborative brings together market leaders Abt Associates, American Institutes for Research (AIR), Mathematica, MDRC, NORC at the University of Chicago, the RAND Corporation, RTI International, the Urban Institute, and Westat for an initiative outside their usual roles as business competitors. As members of the Evidence and Equity Collaborative, these nine organizations representing more than 20,000 employees, are joining forces to support diversity in their workplaces, strengthen inclusive practices in policy research, and build a foundation for equitable analysis ready to inform policymaking across the nation.

Our commitment

Areas of Focus

Enhance practices to support workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion within our member organizations.

Individually, we seek to address inequity within our own respective workforces by improving pathways into our organizations and practices around the recruitment, development, advancement, and retention of all staff, particularly those from historically under-served communities. As a group, we are enhancing the individual efforts of member organizations by facilitating cross-organizational learning on best practices and, where applicable, actively coordinating on internal practices. In doing so, we will promote greater workforce DEI within our field as a whole.

Collectively promote efforts that enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion within our field and beyond.

We work to coordinate on externally focused efforts aimed at enhancing DEI within our field and beyond. This may include, for example, nurturing partnerships with schools and other organizations to increase knowledge of and interest in careers in our field; expanding membership organizations’ and students’ networks to include each other; collaboratively promoting the behavioral and social science and consulting field at conferences and academic programs to attract diverse candidates; and making other externally focused efforts that promote equity and social justice within our field and, more broadly, throughout the world.

Support equity-focused research.

We are promoting a greater understanding of how research methods must evolve to better reflect considerations of cultural competence, equity, and justice. Our member organizations strive to generate research that is responsive and sensitive to these key considerations as part of methodological rigor. As we each continue to learn and implement strategies to do so effectively, the Collaborative is providing a venue to share perspectives within our member organizations that can enhance our collective understanding.

Our organizations

Member Spotlight

Urban Institute

The Urban Institute is a nonprofit research organization that provides data and evidence to help advance equity and upward mobility. For more than 50 years, Urban has delivered facts that inspire solutions and strengthen decision-making among changemakers seeking to improve the well-being of families and communities across the US.

Urban is committed to being equitable, inclusive, and collaborative in our research as well as in our workplace. That means interrogating and mitigating structural racism in society and within our organization, as well as embracing lived experience as a form of evidence. It means creating a culture of belonging at Urban, where all staff are equitably treated, valued, and included in the work we pursue. And it means striving to build teams—within and outside of Urban—with a diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences.

Urban’s investment to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion within our organization began in 2013, and our Race and Equity Framework details our approach to promoting racial equity and becoming the broadly inclusive institution we envision. As Urban works to achieve this vision, we also continue to strengthen our ability to center equity in our research and data analysis—and share what we learn. Among our efforts:

Urban’s Office of Race and Equity Research builds capacity at Urban and across the field for high-quality race and equity research with policy relevance. It also provides strategic advice, thought partnership and technical assistance to a range of change agents.
Urban’s Racial Equity Analytics Lab delivers the data and analyses leaders need to shape more race-conscious policies and practices that can advance opportunity for historically underrepresented communities.
Urban’s Equity Scholars contribute to an existing and growing body of equity-focused research at our organization. Over a two-year timeframe, these emerging and established scholars are developing research that interrogates the effects of structural racism on people and places and offers evidence-informed solutions to advance racial equity.

Visit our website to learn more about Urban’s cross-cutting work that centers equity. For questions about our DEI efforts, contact Chief Equity Officer Jim Taylor at jataylor@urban.org.

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For media inquiries

Makini Nyanteh, AIR

(202) 403-5000

Jennifer de Vallance, Mathematica

(202) 484-4692