We at Public Scholarship and Engagement are grappling with the anger, sadness, and trauma associated with the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other victims of anti-Black violence. We stand in solidarity with people coming together in streets around the world to protest these deaths and the ongoing violent racism so prevalent in our societies.

This is a time like no other, a global health pandemic and the escalation of public unrest in the face of yet another killing of a Black man at the hands of police officers. George Floyd, like numerous other men, women, and trans persons of color before and after him, died because of persistent and endemic racialized realities in the U.S. that plague Black communities simultaneously with over policing and economic and social exclusion.

Many of us are struggling to find the right words to convey our thoughts around, and appropriate ways to respond to, the situation we currently find ourselves in; we are concerned about the effects of COVID-19 not just on our health and that of our loved ones, but also on the wellbeing of entire communities. 

Public Scholarship and Engagement is excited to announce the launch of the Public Impact Research Initiative. The new initiative was designed to recognize and support publicly-engaged research at UC Davis. For its inaugural year, the Public Impact Research Initiative is offering grants that will support research activities with non-university partners in one of the two following categories: