The Colorado Lab works with government, community, and research partners throughout the life cycle of a project, from identifying a challenge or opportunity to scaling and sustaining change. We use the Steps to Building Evidence to meet partners where they are. In all our work, we strive to help build our partners’ capacity to review, make meaning, and act on data.
What Does This Look Like in Practice?
We support partners in “setting the stage” for successful and sustained implementation of a new or existing initiative. This includes clearly defining core components of their strategy and intended outcomes and proactively anticipating and addressing potential barriers.
Are our solutions feasible? What barriers are there to implementing the program to its fullest potential? How will we know if we’ve implemented the program as intended? Who needs to be involved in implementation?
We support partners in identifying how effectively their program has been implemented, whether it leads to desired outcomes, and how to improve.
Are we reaching the right people? Are we achieving what we set out to do? What is our impact? How can we do even better?
We are expert intermediaries at the intersection of science, policy, and practice. With this expertise, we help leaders in our partnership organizations work across projects and systems, facilitating the kind of change that can only happen when all players are aligned.
What are our shared priorities? What kinds of evidence do decision makers need to answer their questions?
We help partners deepen their understanding of challenges and opportunities. We help bring together stakeholders, surface assumptions, and identify where the partner falls on the steps to building evidence. Then, we support partners in identifying promising practices and trying testable, collaborative, and systemic solutions.
What is the problem? Who is the problem impacting? What are the root causes of the problem? What assumptions do we have about our program or the problem it’s trying to solve? What hunches do we have about how to solve this problem? How can evidence inform our approach?
We coordinate evidence-building investments on behalf of local and state government partners. This includes activating the research community to reduce burden on partners and improving alignment between multiple evaluation activities and partner decision-making goals.
How do smaller projects and investments contribute to the bigger picture of policy in Colorado?
Projects
We support our partners in tackling challenges across issue areas, from early childhood to housing to good government.
Evidence-Based Decision Making
Policy and budget decisions are not made using research alone. Evidence-Based Decision Making recognizes that decision-makers’ expertise and community needs and context are also important.
Evidence-Building Hubs
Learn how evidence-building hubs reduce the state’s administrative burden by managing evaluation teams and aligning and supporting actionability.
LINC
The Linked Information Network of Colorado (LINC) is a data integration collaborative based out of the Governor’s Office of Information Technology that supports timely and cost-efficient research, evaluation, and analytics.
