Mexico Social Science Laboratory and Research Incubator
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: The Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at IR/PS seeks to enhance its already successful residential fellowship program by developing the “Mexico Social Science Laboratory and Research Incubator”. A new model of social science support will be based on short-term research incubators, field research laboratories, a GIS laboratory, and evaluation training clinics, for interdisciplinary scholarly research on Mexico and Mexico-California issues. The project will engage scholars from all UC Campuses through the participation of UC faculty and students in the Center’s activities. A network of 30 UC Research Associates will be created to identify and encourage participation from all campuses. The research agenda will be primarily focused in understanding local governance and development experiences through carefully designed field experiments implemented through mobile social science laboratories geared towards the collection and analysis of novel datasets that may gauge the effects of governance in development. Our goal is to provide policy makers with advice on how to enhance the effectiveness of policy interventions, based on scientific studies that combine experimental methods, survey research and observational data, within an integrated approach. The new model would build upon the strong research tradition of field work already existing in Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, the network of partners and peer institutions that has been constructed over the years through collaborative projects, fellowships and other encounters, and the reputation and credibility of the Center within the University of California intellectual community and among Mexico policy makers. The proposed activities are designed to provide training, technical, and evaluation tools for the UC community at large. The proposal includes funding residential fellows working on governance and development issues from the UC campuses and Mexico. At the end of their stay fellows will host a workshop to discuss and disseminate the findings of their research. Short-term research incubators will bring to UC San Diego small teams led by UC faculty to work on grant writing or the conception of collaborative projects in their initial phases. Field research laboratories will be located in Mexico, bringing teams composed of residential fellows, UC faculty, graduate and undergraduate research assistants to study specific problems of governance, development and program evaluation in the field. The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) laboratory will provide geo-referenced local level information to support activities. The evaluation training clinics will provide an intensive course on program evaluation design, governance, embedded field experiments and statistical inference for young (Mexican and American) scholars and graduate students. The new activities are intended to promote and develop original research in the social sciences within the following priority clusters: 1) Democratic Governance; 2) Local Development; 3) Social Policy, Inequality, and Poverty; 4) Ethnicity and Discrimination; 5) Rule of Law; 6) Environmental Policy; 7) Public Health; 8) Education Performance; 9) Mexican Diaspora; and 10) Social Effects of Globalization.