The Institute for Social Research (ISR) is a growing, interdisciplinary applied research center situated at Sacramento State's Downtown School. With a rich 35-year history, ISR specializes in conducting program evaluations and research studies for state and local agencies, community organizations, private foundations, and academic institutions. Comprised of both professional staff and student research assistants, ISR’s mission is to be a public research partner to those organizations and agencies who are working to improve the lives of residents across the greater Sacramento region.

The following values guide our work:

We work collaboratively with our partners. The Institute provides methodological support for our partners so they can make evidence-based decisions regarding their most pressing priorities and questions. Our practice is to recognize the subject-matter expertise of our partners regarding the goals and strengths of their programs and the communities they serve. Our goal is to leave our partners with an increased capacity and understanding of data collection/evaluation and tools to carry on similar work within their organizations even after the end of our contracted work.

We customize our studies to our partners’ needs. The Institute works closely with our partners to develop a research/evaluation design that matches their needs in terms of the level of evidence, project timelines, and budgets. We recognize that any evaluation or research effort requires time and resources from our partners and the people they serve. As such, we ensure that any study we develop is appropriate, useful, and actionable for our partners’ purposes.

We integrate the lived experience of the community whenever possible. We work with our partners to align and ensure any data collection process considers the priority populations’ experiences. Our research processes are not just trauma-informed, they are also culturally relevant and appropriate. Similarly, we work with partners and communities to understand programs and issues from their perspectives and to integrate community engagement in meaningful and impactful ways.

We approach all findings with a growth mindset. Learning is foundational to all of our work. For too long, evaluators and researchers approached communities and organizations as “problems to fix.” While there is certainly work to be done in all communities, we lead by celebrating successes and focus on opportunities for growth and improvement.

We actively work towards integrating principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into all our study designs and practices. We consciously foreground the historic and systematic barriers experienced by many groups based upon their identities. We recognize that a commitment to DEIB is not a ‘checklist’ but an ongoing commitment to examining established practices, listening, and learning from our partners. Our approach to research and evaluation is with a growth mindset and the intentional sharing of knowledge, experiences, and understanding with all of our partners and participants.

We ensure that data and findings are accessible. Regardless of the methodologies used, we make the research process and findings transparent to the organizations and communities involved. This entails making research results accessible in terms of language and presentation formats. We avoid conducting any type of study that is solely extractive to a population and does not share or use findings with participants.