Each civic enterprise is unique, but each can learn from the work of others.

 

IPLW scouts and studies models of public work in local communities, as well as government, education, business, health, and nonprofit sectors.

 

Our studies enrich the knowledge we bring to our partners while pushing citizens, organizations, and communities to question assumptions and imagine their own work “going public.”

 

IPLW Research provides:

 

• An empirically grounded theory of politics that puts the wisdom and productive capacities of cooperative citizens at the center democratic life

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• Enterprise models—educational, commercial, communal, governmental, nonprofit, and hybrid—that demonstrate the power of “going public” to enhance capacity and advance mission

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• Transdisciplinary insights that draw on different kinds of knowledge including empirical and scientific, cultural, local, experiential and spiritual.