Rather than focusing on particular issues or problems, the Division/Center focused on how issues and problems are understood and solved.

The Center created models that conceptualize – in a measurable way – how collaboration strengthens the ability of a group to identify, understand, and solve complex problems.

• The Model of Partnership Synergy describes the mechanism that gives collaboration its unique advantage.

• The Model of Community Health Governance describes how broadly participatory processes lead to more effective community problem solving and to improvements in community health.

• The National Study of Partnership Functioning explored the relationship between partnership functioning and partnership synergy.

• The Redefining Readiness Study was designed to see if the public’s knowledge is needed to develop effective emergency response plans.

• A comparative case study of Pathways to Collaboration partnerships was designed to see how different ways of obtaining and using experiential and expert knowledge affect a community’s capacity to understand and solve problems.

• The Partnership Self-Assessment Tool, based on the National Study of Partnership Functioning, enables partnerships to evaluate how well their collaborative process is working and what they can do to make the process work better.

• New public engagement practices, developed through the Redefining Readiness Local Demonstration Projects enable a large and inclusive group of residents to contribute their experiential knowledge in meaningful ways and enable communities to use the public’s experiential knowledge – as well as expert knowledge – as a foundation for problem solving.

  Mission | Publications