Tisch College Community Research Center

The Tisch College Community Research Center (TCRC) supports research projects undertaken jointly by community members in partnership with Tufts faculty and/or students.

Research we support must involve a formal community partner and produce valuable scholarship while yielding knowledge useful to the community, with a special but not exclusive emphasis on Tufts’ host communities of Somerville, Medford, and Boston’s Chinatown. Likewise, priority is given to research focused on redressing issues of social inequity. Research topics may include education, health, the economy, housing, and the environment. The TCRC is run by a steering committee of community members and Tufts faculty, and is directly supported by funding from Tisch College.

Recent Opportunities

2022 TCRC Seed Grant Program

The Tisch College Community Research Center at Tufts (TCRC) has a round of seed funding available for faculty-community research. This is open to Tufts faculty and their community partners in any discipline, with awards up to $12,000. Application deadline: Friday, April 29, 2022, 5:00 PM EST. 
More information about the grant opportunity and apply: Seed grant application

2022 TCRC Seed Grant Program Information Session
Apr 14, 2022 at 1 PM EST
View the information session slides
If you were unable to attend, please reach out to Elaine with any questions at elaine.donnelly@tufts.edu

2022 Community Research Forum

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2022 Tisch Community Research Forum on April 1!

The first annual TCRC Community Research Forum highlighted a selection from the diverse range of student-community collaborative research across the university. With a keynote on community-engaged research with local partners, the forum hosted concurrent sessions for students and community partners to discuss their collaborative work and highlight research experiences across academic fields at Tufts. Watch recordings of the sessions here:

I. Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on the Health of Brazilian Immigrants with Jen Allen (Community Health), Heloisa Galvão (Brazilian Women’s Group), and partners.

II. Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center and Culturally Responsive Social Services in Quincy, MA

III. Defining Resiliency in Dorchester: A Climate Action Research Project to Understand Vietnamese American Residents’ Relationship with Climate Change with Hoai Thuong Tran

IV. Examining the Experiences of Progressive Political Campaign Workers with Gabriella Cantor

V. Filipina American Women's Experiences & Attitudes Towards Seeking Mental Health Help During College with Florence Almeda

VI. Immigrant Experiences in Somerville during COVID-19: Lessons from a Community-Academic Research Partnership with the Welcome Project.

More information about the concurrent sessions.

About Community Research

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach to research in which community partners are involved in all aspects of the study, including deciding on what research to do, being listed as investigators, being in the budget on grant proposals, serving on the study team during the research, and helping to disseminate findings—including serving as co-authors on publications. CBPR is one form of community engaged research (CEnR) that we frequently support; some other forms of research that involve less intensive work by the community partner will also be considered for TCRC funding.

Criteria and Eligibility

The TCRC is interested in research from any field of inquiry; we have supported projects in public health, the social sciences, and the humanities—and would consider any other area. We will also consider a wide range of research methodologies as long as they are well-aligned with the goals of the research partnership. For example, CEnR and CBPR studies often use interviews and focus groups (or other qualitative, or non-numerical approaches) that are often particularly useful for new areas of research that are still figuring out exactly what the issues are and how to study them. Other CBPR and CEnR projects use quantitative methods (numerical data from surveys, analysis of data from existing studies, and collection of original objective data such as blood samples or measurements in the environment).

Any community-based organization that is working with a Tufts researcher may apply for funding. Qualified Tufts researchers are usually faculty members, but may include other instructors, as well as post docs or graduate students. If students are playing a leading role, however, they must be supervised by a faculty member. If the collaboration involves faculty from an institution other than Tufts, there must be a Tufts faculty person leading the project. Only tax-exempt organizations or those with tax-exempt sponsors are eligible to apply.

You can read more about eligibility and other aspects of the TCRC's structure in the committee's bylaws.

Meet the Team