The Institute for Advanced Study is delighted to announce four new Research and Creative Collaboratives advancing interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and creative practice.

These new Collaboratives engage urgent questions at the intersection of community knowledge, wellbeing and equity, and sustainable futures. Their projects explore topics such as the relationship between labor and scholarship; ethical avenues for collaborative knowledge production with incarcerated students and alumni; data-driven approaches to public accountability and civic trust; and community-based agricultural practices that support environmental stewardship and culturally grounded food systems. 

At the helm of these projects are conveners from across the University of Minnesota, local and national peer institutions, and community organizations. They join an interdisciplinary cohort of conveners currently leading nine additional Collaboratives hosted by the IAS.

Research and Creative Collaboratives represent some of the most synergistic and innovative work across the University of Minnesota system. Faculty, staff, and students from across all five campuses, alongside colleagues from peer institutions and community leaders, come together to pursue interdisciplinary projects and activities that transcend departmental and collegiate structures. Collaboratives receive up to $12,000 as well as administrative support and project amplification from the Institute for Advanced Study to further their work. 

Many past Collaboratives have gone on to grow into formalized ongoing research groups and programs that contribute to student learning and community engagement, including the Center for Premodern Studies, Critical Disability Studies Collective, and the Heritage Studies and Public History Graduate Program. Others have successfully pursued external grant funding to further their research and artistic endeavors.

Awardees for the Spring 2026 IAS Research and Creative Collaborative call are funded from July 2026 through December 2027 and are:

The Liberal Artisan

The Liberal Artisan reconnects labor and scholarship, the mind and the hand, and the material and the theoretical in a program fostering a way of being and working grounded in embodied communities of knowledge and skill. We resist contemporary forces of alienation, disembodiment, and social fragmentation by creating spaces to holistically and collaboratively address material, conceptual, and societal challenges. Our collaborative, based at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Duluth campuses, will draw on robust resources across the state of Minnesota to:

• Build a consortium of scholars, practitioners, and workers across our campuses and communities.
• Develop skills and expertise among UMN faculty and staff in production technologies, crafts, materials, and worker experiences through workshops with local practitioners and arts and labor organizations.
• Cultivate research and teaching integration in material and experiential methods through scholarly reading groups, symposia, and a curriculum development workshop.
• Foster student and staff communities of craft among the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Duluth campuses.
• Share experiential learning and University research with diverse campus and community audiences.

Conveners:

• Krista Sue-Lo Twu, Department of English, Linguistics & Writing Studies, College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, University of Minnesota Duluth
• Lydia Garver, Center for Premodern Studies, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Gilbert Tostevin, Department of Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Collaborative Research in Prison Work Group

Building off our informal collaboration with IAS last semester, the Transformation and Reentry Through Education and Community (TREC) Program (Metro State’s College-in-Prison program) staff and our long time University of Minnesota collaborators Professors Susanna Blumenthal, Kate Derkinson, and Emily Beck will convene an interdisciplinary group of humanities researchers, graduate students, and practitioners to explore the various ethical dimensions and possibilities of collaborative research projects with incarcerated students and alumni. The TREC-IAS Collaborative Research in Prison Work Group will examine relevant scholarship, engage with activists and stakeholders, and forge new frameworks around the co-creation of new academic and creative knowledge(s) in prison as part of TREC’s research cluster initiative.

Conveners:

• Susanna Blumenthal, History, College of Liberal Arts & Law School, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Kate Derickson, Geography, Environment & Society, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Emily Oliver, Transformation and Reentry Through Education and Community (TREC) Program and Writing, Literature, and Language, College of Individualized Studies, Metro State University
• Macey Flood, Transformation and Reentry Through Education and Community (TREC) Program, College of Individualized Studies, Metro State University
• Travis Sands, Transformation and Reentry Through Education and Community (TREC) Program, College of Individualized Studies, Metro State University
• Emily Beck, Wangensteen Historical Library, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Comparative Police Complaint Network Analysis with the Data Science, Police Accountability, and Community Engagement (DSPACE) Group and Reinvestigation Workgroup

When police interactions cause public harm, community members can file complaints that are investigated to determine if misconduct occurred. How departments handle complaints reveals their commitment to accountability. Unfortunately, complaint data in many U.S. cities is sparse or inaccessible, eroding trust and enabling repeat offenses. To increase transparency, the Data Science, Police Accountability, and Community Engagement (DSPACE) research group is partnering with the Reinvestigation Workgroup (RWG) to develop quantitative methods for analyzing misconduct complaints. This partnership emerged from Minneapolis community conversations about the complaint process. Using publicly available data, DSPACE will develop a network analysis approach examining how officers connect through co-complaints across multiple cities, or instances where multiple officers are named in the same complaint.

Conveners:

• William Asinger, Division of Biostatistics and Health Data Science, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Claire Kelling, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Carleton College
• Ariana Mendible, Department of Mathematics, Seattle University
• Emma Pederson, The Reinvestigation Workgroup
• Alexander Wiedemann, Department of Mathematics, Hamline College

Relational Agroecologies: Hmong and Latinx Farming Knowledge, Care, and Community Research in Minnesota

This Research and Creative Collaborative brings together university-based scholars and community knowledge holders to co-produce agroecological knowledge with Hmong and Latinx farmers in Minnesota. Led by an interdisciplinary team from Natural Resources Science and Management and Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, and co-convened with the Minnesota Food Association and farmer leaders, the project centers community-engaged inquiry into land-based care, agricultural labor, and environmental change. Through bilingual English–Spanish) collaborative sessions, field-based dialogues, and public-facing programming, the Collaborative documents and interprets agroecological practices as situated expertise shaped by migration, racialization, and structural constraint. Outcomes include a bilingual community report and toolkit and an IAS public event.

Conveners:

• Daniel Antonio Hernandez Linares, Natural Resource Science and Management (NRSM), College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Alexandra Choconta Piraquive, Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, College of Liberal Arts, 
• Susane Moua, Nature's Holistic Farm
• Friendly Vang-Johnson, Friendly Hmong Farms