OFFICE OF RESEARCH
All research is not alike. Beyond simply raising awareness of racism, we must be able to connect racial inequities to their root causes in policies and practices by providing convincing evidence anchored in data. Academics examining these issues, however, are often challenged by a lack of expertise in either racial science or data science. To address this gap, the Center’s Office of Research seeks to marry racial research and data science to pioneer and lead the field of racial data science. Racial data science is the collection and analysis of comprehensive data sets on racial, social, and economic patterns that can help us understand the roots of racial inequities. We believe that advancing the field of racial data science is the most effective way to expose the effects of racist policies that create and exacerbate racial inequities, and to drive the development of new, antiracist policies that eliminate racial disparities.
The Office of Research propels racial data science, and ultimately the Center’s mission to dismantle systemic racism, through these initiatives: • The Racial Data Tracker is the nation’s largest publicly available online collection of racial data across the sectors of health, economics, criminal justice, education, politics, and the environment. By incorporating comprehensive data, maps, and infographics, the Tracker serves as an invaluable resource that allows researchers and the general public to visualize where racial inequities exist and persist. • Our Research & Policy Teams are nimble, multidisciplinary groups composed of researchers, policymakers, journalists, artists, and advocates, brought together to study how best to dismantle racist structures, practices, and institutions that reproduce racial inequities.