The UDRC’s 2020 Research Agenda

Jeremias Solari, Assistant Director
April 29, 2020

Every year the UDRC creates a new research agenda. We take what we did not get to this year-sorry!-, add new ideas from the team and our partners, do some prioritizing, and commit to a list of exciting and fresh new research ideas. Despite the ongoing pandemic and the earthquake, we are still on track.

This year, we will get through items 1 – 5 on our current 2019 research agenda. The rest will be migrated to the new 2020 research agenda. The UDRC has internally discussed new research agenda items, and has received guidance from our partners on what their priorities are for research this coming year. We look forward to making the new 2020 research agenda public by August of 2020.

Due to access, the UDRC now has to birth and death certificates. The door has opened for more agenda themes. For example, what are the effects of child birth on labor force attachment (employment)? And does the age of the parent at birth effect scholastic outcomes?

Another theme is the effect of Covid-19 on specific interactions that we have data to describe; for example, the effects of education on the likelihood to require public assistance during the Covid-19 pandemic. It may be years before we have the data sets to reveal just how deeply and in what ways COVID-19 effected our state.

Regardless of the topic or theme of this year’s research agenda items, we hope that they will be exciting and insightful to you!

Thanks, and stay healthy.

*The UDRC had an advisory board meeting on April 23rd. If you missed it, you can find it here. You can review the meeting minutes and the presentation by clicking on the “Advisory Board” tab on our homepage. You are able to use this link for all future advisory board meetings.