The Racial Equity Analytics Lab provides a platform for incubating promising data equity solutions throughout the Urban Institute. This program hosts a competition to identify compelling pilot projects that prioritize data and equity-driven methods across our 12 policy centers, holding the potential to address critical knowledge gaps that support centering equity in policy and program decisions.

Why an incubator?

Adopting an intersectional perspective is essential when working in the equity field, demanding a creative and innovative approach to experiment on filling critical knowledge gaps perpetuating inequities in our institutions and society. An incubator serves as a unique resource, empowering Urban researchers and practitioners to swiftly design prototypes for the public good, transcending traditional siloes, disciplines, and policy areas. This collaborative effort brings together experts from Urban’s Office of Race and Equity Research, Community Engagement Resource Center, and Office of Technology and Data Science.

Our theory of impact

Change agents have identified new data science and quantitative innovations as critical for providing a full understanding of the nature of structural racism and entrenched disparities. We believe that changemakers in government and communities can better ensure equal opportunity for all by embracing innovations in:

• Disaggregated data (e.g., Spatial Equity Data Tool)
• Ethically and rigorously imputed race/ethnicity data (e.g., Ethics and Empathy Using Imputation)
• Local-level data (e.g., Filling Public Data Gaps)
• Creative microsimulation and projection modeling (e.g., DYNASIM)
• Equitable automated systems (e.g., Automating Zoning Collection)
• Participatory or community-engaged quantitative methods (e.g., A Participatory and Quantitative Methods Guidebook)

Our approach

REAL provides an agile sprint framework to help scope and build equity data solution prototypes. This framework integrates data science, social science, public policy, and community-engaged methods, addressing the needs of decisionmakers dedicated to tackling inequities in public policy. Our multidisciplinary approach embraces creativity, inclusivity, and innovation.

What are the key components of a successful incubator project?

• Accessibility and Transparency: A successful project involves a data solution that makes information accessible, transparent, and actionable. Data solutions empower users to make decisions supported by evidence and context. REAL recognizes equity as a multidimensional concept encompassing issues related to race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, disability, income, and more.
• Diverse Forms: A data solution can take on numerous forms, as outlined in Our Theory of Impact, which provides diverse examples.
• Pilot Demonstration: Implementing a pilot serves as a crucial step, showcasing a proof of concept and informing the design of the full-scale solution. This phase may involve developing a prototype product tailored to a specific user and use case.

Incubator publications

• Growing Climate Hazards Pose Risks to Food System Resiliency Nationwide. Communities of Color Stand to Bear the Brunt. 
  This pilot data tool provides change agents with the data they need to demonstrate the interconnectedness of climate risk, food systems, and racial equity at the county level. This project aims to inform more effective resource-targeting to communities confronting the starkest climate risk and recovery challenges.
• Is Privacy at Odds with Racial Equity? Visualizing Implications for Communities of Color in Public Data Releases
  This pilot educational tool allows community-based organizations and other interested users to explore the trade-offs between equity and privacy when entities release data and statistics publicly.
• Opt-In Disclosure Protection
  Data stewards intentionally add errors to published microdata and statistics to protect confidentiality. These errors have a disproportionate impact on the accuracy of information about small groups including racial and ethnic minorities, and rural communities. This study presents an opt-in privacy framework, ethical and legal considerations for an opt-in privacy framework, and early evidence of the impact of such a framework. 

Collaborate with us

If you are a change agent, corporation, government agency, academic institution, or community-based organization interested in partnering with the Racial Equity Analytics Lab to co-create data equity solutions, we welcome your partnership. 

Please contact [email protected] if you are interested in learning more.