Turning research into lasting public benefit.
A program of the Adloris Foundation
WHAT WE DO
American Collaboratory grew out of a Kauffman Foundation-funded initiative at Johns Hopkins, where Drs. Archer and Polk identified a persistent gap between research production and practical application. The Baltimore pilot revealed that communities needed more than published findings. They needed governed infrastructure for collective problem-solving and sustained implementation.
When academic-community partnerships end, the applied knowledge they generated rarely survives. Published findings sit in journals. Tools lose maintenance. Institutional memory scatters. The communities that contributed to the work lose access to its benefits.
Applied knowledge deserves better than a shelf life tied to a grant cycle. American Collaboratory builds the infrastructure to make it last.
The core mission in action. This program develops and maintains the institutional infrastructure needed to preserve applied knowledge as a community resource. That means governance frameworks for knowledge commons, documentation and transfer protocols for academic-community partnerships, community capacity building for knowledge curation and long-term access, and technical assistance for organizations seeking to prevent knowledge loss after grant-funded projects end.
Building the digital and physical infrastructure communities need to participate in knowledge creation and governance. Drawing on partnerships with Johns Hopkins and community anchor institutions, this program addresses broadband advocacy and community connectivity, digital literacy and workforce development, community data governance and ownership, and technology platforms for engagement and knowledge sharing.
Applying the knowledge commons model to the challenge of designing communities where people age with dignity, connection, and purpose. This program translates research on aging, built environments, and social infrastructure into practical community frameworks, including age-friendly design standards, intergenerational programming, and community-led planning processes for livable neighborhoods.
Executive Chairman
Adloris Foundation
Executive Director
American Collaboratory
Deputy Director
American Collaboratory
Associate Director,
Communications
Assistant Director,
Finance and People Operations
Assistant Director,
Research Initiatives
OUR STORY
Applied knowledge gets orphaned. A university partners with a community, builds something that works, and then the grant ends. The researchers move on. The findings get published in a journal nobody in the community reads. The tools, relationships, and institutional memory that made the work possible disappear.
American Collaboratory grew out of a Kauffman Foundation-funded initiative at Johns Hopkins, where Drs. Archer and Polk identified this persistent gap between research production and practical application. The Baltimore pilot revealed that communities needed more than published findings. They needed governed infrastructure for collective problem-solving and sustained implementation, what the team came to call applied knowledge commons. Jonathan Moore's work in broadband infrastructure and community technology through Johns Hopkins demonstrated that these commons required both institutional governance and practical technology to reach the people they were meant to serve.
American Collaboratory became Adloris Foundation's flagship program for building these systems.