Carnegie Mellon University and The Heinz Endowments today announced a sweeping initiative to leverage the university's internationally recognized strengths in applied research to address longstanding barriers to equity and foster economic empowerment in the greater Pittsburgh region. The Center for Shared Prosperity aims to create a sustainable and replicable model for community-university collaboration, with a focus on deploying solutions for socio-economic inequities and making measurable progress toward greater economic prosperity and overall well-being of residents.
The Heinz Endowments has committed $30 million over six years to the initiative, which will fund the creation and launch of the center as well as initial real-world projects that are identified by community partners and that are grounded in community. The grant, the largest in The Endowments' history, includes funding to develop, pilot and scale region-wide interventions to identify and address structural barriers to access and opportunity. A portion of the grant will be used to establish an endowment to support the center's work in perpetuity.
"As a university- and community-wide effort, The Center for Shared Prosperity will apply a comprehensive methodology to CMU's engagement across Western Pennsylvania and will leverage our unique expertise to help residents benefit from the innovation economy," said Farnam Jahanian, CMU president. "The Heinz Endowments and CMU have worked together for decades on projects that support Pittsburghers, and this new initiative will expand our community collaborations at a particularly critical moment. With both the pandemic and the rapid pace of technological change contributing to a widening opportunity gap, the solutions proposed through The Center for Shared Prosperity will help our region address societal barriers and will also serve as a model that can be replicated in communities across the country. We are grateful to The Heinz Endowments and its board for their generous support and partnership."
At the heart of the initiative is a new model of collaboration that unites the expertise of both the community and the university. The recently formed Center Community Committee will be charged with identifying specific equity, economic and social justice challenges facing the Pittsburgh region that will be the focus of the center's work, including in areas such as housing, education, transportation, healthcare, technology fluency and access to capital. It will include representation from Western Pennsylvania community organizations and residents; CMU faculty, staff and students; and Heinz Endowments staff.