Our Mission

Established in 2019, the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (CDCE) at the University of Maryland has played a leading role mobilizing the whole UMD community to strengthen democracy. We work to strengthen democracy locally through service to our state and nationally leveraging our location near Washington, D.C., close to federal government offices, think tanks, and other organizations’ national headquarters.

Our Vision

The CDCE seeks to mobilize the entire University of Maryland community to strengthen democracy through these three core strategies: 

1. Serving scholars across the University

CDCE is using capacities around public engagement and citizen voice to serve scholars across the University. By supporting scholars from diverse fields in understanding public opinion related to their areas of expertise and helping them find audiences for their scholarship among policy makers in state government, CDCE can play a key role in enabling public impact for research happening across the entire University. CDCE’s ongoing collaborations with The Washington Post, state government, and local governments are critical assets in this work.

2. Advancing research with new knowledge from community partnerships

CDCE is at the forefront of a movement in political science to formally bring community partners into the research process as knowledge producers rather than just research subjects. In 2022, we launched the Vote 16 Research Network and the Student Vote Research Network which have quickly become important national and global hubs for learning about lowering the voting age and college student voting. We plan to expand this work by establishing a Sports and Voting Research Consortium and growing the Student Vote Research Network to serve educators in high schools in addition to higher education

3. Growing capacity through project based learning

Every single partnership that CDCE is cultivating requires ongoing maintenance and stewardship in order to blossom into cutting edge knowledge about how to strengthen our democracy. That maintenance and stewardship work creates invaluable project based learning opportunities for UMD students to get hands-on experience connecting the work of scholars with the work of policy makers and community partners. CDCE piloted a project based learning program with the Vote 16 Research Network in 2022 and there are opportunities to replicate this work across the Center’s portfolio.

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