AU's Translating Research Into Action Center and US State Department Establish Innovative Research Partnership

American University and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) have established an innovative research partnership to investigate when and how State Department uses data and evidence to inform foreign policy decisions and implementation. This project is supported in part by AU's Translating Research into Action Center, a U.S. National Science Foundation Grant from the Accelerating Research Translation program.

The AU team, led by SIS Provost Associate Professor Susanna Campbell and SIS PhD student Lindsay Barclay, asks the research question: When and how does State use data and evidence to inform foreign policy decision-making and practice? This question supports State's policy imperative to increase evidence use, which making it easier for the research team to act on the findings. The findings will also help to support the other aims of advancing State's Learning Agenda; deepening CSO's existing data analytics efforts to anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflict; supporting the Secretary of State's Modernization Agenda; and producing publications on foreign policy decision-making that can be published in top peer-reviewed journals.

Because both academics and government practitioners are still trying to understand how to create impactful research collaborations, one of the secondary goals of this partnership is to share collaboration methods. The hope is for this partnership between AU and CSO to serve as a model for how policymakers can engage with scholars to improve government functions and processes.

Read more about the partnership here.