RESEARCH
Cutting-edge research leads to innovation and impact
Research at SP2 is led by renowned faculty who are highly respected practitioners, educators, and mentors. Together with a worldwide network of global collaborators, they are advancing knowledge that drives justice, equity, and social innovation in a range of critical areas such as homelessness, health equity, social innovation, and more.
Initiatives and Special Projects
From encouraging social innovation to promoting economic security and well-being, SP2’s special projects uphold Penn’s commitment to engage both locally and globally on interdisciplinary cooperation and professional development.
- Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP): Aims to encourage social innovation and social policy experimentation so that governments can work better, smarter and faster
- Health Equity and Policy Lab: A research lab with collaborators worldwide focused on research and policy to improve health equity, efficiency, resource allocation, and governance
Research Centers
Students, faculty, and collaborators connect in SP2’s research centers to further groundbreaking scholarship in areas such as philanthropy, aging, social impact, children’s policy, violence and abuse, and guaranteed income.
Center for Carceral Communities
Works collaboratively with neighborhoods in West Philadelphia to help people with a history of incarceration re-engage with the community
Center for Guaranteed Income Research
An applied research center that specializes in cash-transfer research, evaluation, pilot design, and narrative change
CENTER FOR HIGH IMPACT PHILANTHROPY
The only university-based center with a singular focus on philanthropy for social impact
Center for Social Impact Strategy
Alternative learning opportunities equip those who seek to make a social impact through the application of practical research and our community of educational partners and mentors
Center for Social Mobility & Prosperity
A “think and do tank” to research solutions and provide capacity building support for efforts that put people and communities on a path to sustained, generational prosperity
Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research
A collaboration of SP2, Penn’s schools of Law, Medicine, Nursing, Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate School of Education, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, this center is focused on reform of the child welfare system
Ortner Center on Violence & Abuse
Dedicated to increasing women’s well-being by identifying societal changes that might affect violence against women and girls
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