N3: The Northwestern Neighborhood and Network Initiative

In Chicago, and any other city in America, things “get done” by engaging, leveraging, or activating social networks—the connections, links, and relationships between people, organizations, and institutions. A two decade explosion in the field of network science demonstrates that our social networks can make us healthier, smarter, and safer. But the opposite is also true: being isolated or lacking access to certain networks can make us much us less safe, less healthy, or exclude us from opportunities and life chances. This same networked logic applies to neighborhoods: communities with well-connected networks that can access resources and institutions throughout the city tend to have lower crime rates, better schools, and healthier residents.The Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative (N3) will be an incubator for new ways that faculty and experts at Northwestern can engage communities, civic partners, and policy makers to address core problems facing the residents of Chicago and surrounding communities. Over the next several years, N3 will pursue the long-term goal of developing Northwestern’s efforts at engaged research, problem solving, and policy making initiatives in the City of Chicago and the region. This will mean transcending traditional boundaries within the academy by teaming up with other universities, community organizations, policy-makers, and civic partners.