Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan is soliciting ideas for collaborative research projects between the City of Detroit and University of Michigan faculty and staff, designed to directly inform City efforts to alleviate poverty and promote economic mobility. Project ideas can be pitched by City of Detroit staff or U-M faculty and staff.

The Detroit Partnership on Economic Mobility between Poverty Solutions and the City of Detroit is a joint effort to identify and implement concrete, evidence-based strategies that significantly improve economic opportunity and reduce poverty in Detroit. Partnership projects are already underway pairing dozens of U-M experts with the leadership of City departments including Health, Workforce, Housing and Revitalization, Jobs and Economy, and Police. Our goal is to add capacity to existing City efforts, and to ask and answer questions that amplify and inform those efforts. For more information visit: poverty.umich.edu/projects/projects-in-detroit/.

Any City of Detroit staff member, or U-M faculty or staff member, can submit a project idea by filling out the form below. For City staff, this might be a research question that you come across in your daily work that you lack the capacity to pursue, but need answered to help inform your work. Or it may be that you’re interested in evaluating the impact of City initiatives on the economic lives of Detroiters. For U-M faculty and staff, it may be a project that aligns with your research and would be of critical importance to City staff. Any idea is welcome, so long as it aligns with our collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and promote economic mobility in Detroit.

Once a project idea is submitted, Poverty Solutions staff will work with both City staff and U-M faculty, staff, and students, to determine the optimal research design for the proposed question/project. Some projects may be taken on by Poverty Solutions staff. Many others will call for the expertise of U-M faculty, postdoctoral scholars, students, and staff, from a range of disciplines across campus.

Poverty Solutions will award grant funding to projects based on the project scope, the level of interest in the project from both the City of Detroit and U-M faculty and staff, and the extent to which outcomes of the research will inform our collective agenda to promote economic mobility. There is no minimum level of grant funding, though the maximum grant amount is $50,000. Proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis.

Please note again that this is a request for proposals or ideas. We don’t expect most submissions to have the project details worked out just yet, and that’s completely fine. For all project ideas that we select, we will work with you to develop collaborative partnerships between relevant City staff and U-M faculty and staff, a refined project scope, and a project timeline and budget.

Applications will be evaluated based upon several factors, including:

• the degree to which a project responds to City needs, or questions the City seeks to answer, but lacks the capacity to pursue;

• the degree to which a project will contribute action-oriented knowledge to City of Detroit officials, which they can utilize in their efforts to alleviate poverty and promote economic mobility;

• the degree to which a project builds knowledge that informs the understanding of
interventions, programs, or policies that seek to prevent or alleviate poverty, and promote economic mobility;

• the degree to which a project can inform the City’s work in a timely manner.

If your project is selected, and we move ahead with developing a detailed project scope, timeline, and budget, we will need a letter of support from the relevant department head at the City and relevant U-M department head prior to funding the project.

If you have questions at any stage of the process, please reach out to Patrick Cooney, Assistant Director of the partnership, at (248) 798-6421 or cooneypb@umich.edu.