Guiding principles

• Experience and expertise of community and university members are equally valued and necessary.
• The critical focus is to generate working solutions.
• Efforts are focused on priorities identified through collaborations with community partners, which begin by acknowledging existing resources, experiences and expertise within the community and the university.
• Interdisciplinary approaches provide resources and expertise that are better aligned with the community’s challenges.
• Open lines of communication among all participants make it possible to respond to needs and opportunities as they arise.
• Evidence-based strategies guide research and service delivery.
• All activities are implemented with an evaluation component that informs all partners.
• Everyone learns: students, community partners and faculty.
• Discoveries are shared with local, state and national colleagues and policymakers.
• Partners work together to identify new resources to support priorities.