The school houses a number of research centers where faculty members from across campus pursue issues of mutual interest. In addition to their focus on practical policy problems, the research centers also offer opportunities for student financial aid in the form of research assistant positions, grants, and fellowships.
The UCLA Agile Visual Analytics Lab (AVAL) empowers national, state, and local stakeholders to use data to make more timely and sound decisions impacting children, families, communities, and the workforces that serve them. The lab accomplishes that mission by putting vital information into the hands of stakeholders in the form of data visualizations that efficiently and effectively meet their diverse and dynamic information needs; implementing utilization-focused and developmental evaluation of programs and policies of mission-driven organizations and systems; and building the capacity of systems and organizations to grow, use, and sustain data ecosystems.
The Berggruen Governance Index evaluates countries on the basis of their quality of political governance. To do this, the index disaggregates governance into three key components: quality of democracy (inputs), quality of government (throughputs), and quality of life (outputs). By disaggregating the capacities of governance, the index attempts to deepen understanding of the relationship between the democratic feedback, government competence, and the provision of public goods.
The Center for Neighborhood Knowledge is dedicated to translating its research to inform actionable neighborhood-related policies and programs that contribute to positive social change. It specializes in empirical spatial analysis and emphasizes the study of diversity, differences, and disparities among neighborhoods; and explicitly covers immigrant enclaves, low-income neighborhoods, and minority communities. In response to the current public health crisis and racial climate, the center launched the COVID-19 Equity Research Initiative in March 2020 to analyze systemic inequality and the pandemic’s impact on the way we live, work, learn, shop, and socialize. One of the Initiative’s objectives is to produce timely research briefs, publicly accessible data, and mapping tools, all to inform public discussion on critical policy issues. The goal is to provide timely insights to policymakers, community stakeholders, and others who are addressing economic, social, and political disruptions, with the ultimate goal of ensuring a fair and just recovery for the most impacted communities.
The UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), one of the leading transportation policy research centers in the U.S., was created in 1992 to conduct research and furnish professional education on the social, economic, environmental, and cultural aspects of transportation policy. Each year ITS faculty members, students, and research staff collaborate on a wide array of transportation policy and planning studies, ranging from an analysis of the travel trends and transportation needs of immigrants and low-income workers to the testing and evaluation of innovative fare programs to increase public transit use.
The Institute on Inequality and Democracy, organized in 2016, advances radical democracy in an unequal world through research, critical thought, and alliances with social movements and racial justice activism. Institute programs and projects convene multiple disciplines, narrative forms, and styles of scholarship and practice, while focusing on four research priorities: housing justice, predatory financialization, policing and incarceration, and decolonizing the university. The Institute aims to analyze and transform the divides and dispossessions of our times, in the university and in our cities, across the global south and global north.
The mission of the UCLA Luskin Latin American Cities Initiative (Ciudades) is to develop and deepen knowledge networks among students, educators, and professionals in the arena of urban planning and policy in South, Central, and North America. The initiative sponsors teaching and public events at UCLA and Casa de California in Mexico City, coordinates academic and professional networks to enhance the knowledge base in urban planning and policy, and supports individual student research and internships.
The Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) is a comprehensive think tank that addresses the most critical domestic policy challenges facing Latinos and other communities of color in states and localities across the U.S. The initiative leverages UCLA’s cross-disciplinary strengths to create an enterprise-wide home for Latino social policy with expertise in over a dozen issue areas including civil rights, criminal justice, educational equity, health access, and voting and civic participation. The initiative fosters innovative research, leverages policy-relevant expertise, drives civic engagement, and nurtures a leadership pipeline to propel viable policy reforms that expand opportunity for all Americans.
The Los Angeles Education Research Institute (LAERI) advances educational equity and improvement in Los Angeles by bringing researchers and practitioners together to address important educational challenges. It cultivates and maintains a shared research and partnership infrastructure that facilitates new empirical projects and builds connections among academics, practitioners, and policymakers. The research-to-practice model emphasizes the importance of locally developed research questions, sustained collaboration and communication, and cumulative projects that build toward solutions.
The Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI) conducts rigorous research and timely outreach that informs environmental policies for the health of people and the planet. Center faculty, staff, and graduate student researchers evaluate existing and proposed environmental policies to assess their effectiveness, equity impacts, and potential to spur innovation. The center then shares research findings with community leaders and policymakers, who use LCI research to design evidence-based environmental policies. The center often focuses on California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, to support a model of environmental leadership that is relevant globally. Research programs include climate, energy, environmental equity, transportation, urban greening, and water—all linked by the theme of informing effective and equitable solutions to the environmental challenges of our time.
The Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies was founded in 1989, with a $5 million endowment from Ralph and Goldy Lewis, to promote the multidisciplinary study, understanding, and solution of regional policy issues in California. Research projects cover welfare reform, housing, immigration, environment, health insurance, labor and employment, and transportation—with a specific interest on the policy impact on vulnerable populations as a through line.
The UCLA Hub for Health Intervention, Policy and Practice (HHIPP) connects the academy, community, and policymakers to address health disparities among diverse communities in Los Angeles and beyond. UCLA HHIPP engages community members in impactful, theory-driven and sustainable research that informs high-level policy and street-level social justice health outcomes. UCLA HHIPP’s work situates health policy within a social welfare and social justice framework. It espouses a broad definition of health and wellness with special consideration given to adverse social conditions, stigma, discrimination, poverty, racism, and homophobia.
