SPEA’s Centers, Institutes & Initiatives

SPEA’s Global Initiatives (SGI) promote positive change and improved well-being for people the world over. The people behind the Initiatives, all of whom are faculty members of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, are uniquely prepared to advance this lofty goal. They promote positive change through their applied research, teaching, and public service for governmental, intergovernmental, for-profit, non-profit, and academic institutions, and their work has produced benefits for individuals and organizations on five continents.

David Audretsch, Director
The Institute, as part of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, furthers research, graduate-level education, and scholarly exchange in economic development and public policy. It serves as a focal point for Indiana University's contributions to economic development and coordinates faculty research and seminars. It also offers courses and workshops and is a frequent conference sponsor. One of the key programs managed by the Institute is the Ameritech Fellowship Program, which supports several regional policy research projects directed by University faculty members.

Maureen Pirog, Director
The Institute for Family and Social Responsibility is a joint effort of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the School of Social Work, with a primary focus on social policy research and outreach activities. The Institute's mission is to bring together the resources of citizens, governments, communities and Indiana University to better the lives of children and families. Ongoing research projects examine the impacts of welfare reforms, the adequacy of child support guidelines, community responses to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families legislation, and AIDS education for incarcerated youth. The Institute serves as the National Child Support Enforcement Research Clearinghouse. It also administers a university-wide competitive student internship program in collaboration with the Indiana Family Social Service Administration.

J.C. Randolph, Director
The GIS Lab in SPEA is a next-generation computing facility with information processing technology that manages, analyzes, and displays spatial data for scientific and policy research.

Ronald A. Hites, Director
The goals of the Center are to promote excellence in environmental science research and to foster increased interdisciplinary collaboration among environmental science faculty on the Indiana University-Bloomington campus. Activities of the Center include seminars, discussion groups, and proposal preparation workshops.

David Good, Director
TRC continues Indiana University's tradition in transportation research, service, and education. Researching highway safety, aviation safety, transportation economics, and the transport of hazardous materials are recent projects. The center uses a staff of researchers, faculty, and graduate students to carry out projects for various government agencies and for the private sector. These projects include highway crash data and safety analysis, investigation of air bags in crashes, and evaluating alternative DWI treatment programs in Indiana's Marion County.

Karen G. Evans, Director
The Center conducts research and provides technical services to units of governments and other institutions in northwest Indiana. It also focuses on issues in public affairs and administration in the Great Lakes region.

In May of 2001 the Indiana University Board of Trustees, with strong support from students, faculty and administration, established a Research and Teaching Preserve (RTP) to enhance the research, teaching and service missions of the university. Indiana University has a national reputation for field-based research, particularly in the biological and environmental sciences. There is growing national and international emphasis on environmental issues whose solutions require observational and experimental studies of fundamental processes in the natural world. The establishment of the RTP recognizes and affirms that not all scientific research is done in a lab and that not all teaching is done in a classroom.

The Indiana University Research and Teaching Preserve (IURTP) website provides information on the preserve, including directions and access to the preserve, maps, flora and fauna, history, research, and teaching activities. It also includes contact information and links to related websites.

John L. Krauss, Director
The Center for Urban Policy and the Environment was created and developed in 1992 within the School of Public and Environmental Affairs on the Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis campus as the cornerstone of a strategy to position I.U. as a national leader in urban and environmental policy. The Center works with state and local governments and their associations, neighborhood and community organizations, and business and civic groups to identify issues, analyze options, and develop the capacity to respond to challenges. The Center brings to Indiana cities and communities the expertise of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs faculty, as well as the considerable talents of our professional staff and graduate students. Since 1992, the Center has completed more than 270 projects with and for public, private, and nonprofit institutions in the Indianapolis region, across the state of Indiana, and in other states and countries. These projects fall within several areas of public policy, including central city development, criminal justice, growth management, waste disposal, government and finance, health care, and water resources. The Center also has produced 100 articles for peer reviewed journals, three books, and several dissertations.

Elinor Ostrom, Director
The Workshop was established in 1973. The faculty associated with the Workshop teach in SPEA, the Departments of Political Science, Economics, and Psychology and the Kelley School of Business. Scholars and students work in applied research related to theoretical problems. Multidisciplinary and multinational, with scholars in residence from around the world, the Workshop has three central areas of research: institutional analysis of public goods and common pool resources, the nature of macropolitical order, and conflict at an international level. It receives wide recognition for its ability to provide critical examination of ideas, evaluation of their scientific merit, conduct experiments, and disseminate the results for societal benefit.

Elinor Ostrom and Emilio Moran, Co-directors
The Center (CIPEC) is a cooperative effort of four research centers on the Indiana University Bloomington campus: the Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change, the Midwestern Regional Center of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change, the Population Institute for Research and Training, and the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. CIPEC activities include interdisciplinary training and research on questions such as: How do institutional arrangements influence the nature and magnitude of human impacts, such as population density and transportation networks on forest ecosystems and global change? These activities focus primarily on the western hemisphere.

Indiana Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (IACIR) was established by the General Assembly in 1995 to provide a forum to plan for and address the problems that will arise as greater demands are made on state and local governments. The mission of the IACIR is to create effective communication, cooperation, and partnerships between the federal, state, and local units of government to improve the delivery of services to the citizens of Indiana.

The Northwest Indiana Local Government Academy is a collaborative effort between six colleges and universities: IU Northwest, Valparaiso University, Calumet College, Ivy Tech State College, Purdue Calumet, and Purdue North Central. The LGA is committed to improving the performance of local government in Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties.

The Data Laboratory and Archive contain over 2000 data sets and machine readable codebooks. The Archive is a member of the InterUniversity consortium for Political and Social Research and the International Survey Library Association (Roper Center). The Lab offers consulting and instruction in the use of computer facilities on the campus as well as providing data sets for graduate student research.