EPIC-Network

The Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities (EPIC-N) supports the work of some 70 university-based programs using the EPIC model of university-community engagement. This has proven to be an exceptionally efficient way to deploy voluntary use of university resources in area communities to promote their "sustainable development" in the encompassing terms of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. Over the past decade, university-based programs using the EPIC model in the EPIC-Network have completed, at trivial cost relative to their return to engaged communities, more than 1,700 SDG-informed development projects in more than 300 communities. This grant will provide general operating support.

The Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities, known as EPIC-Network or EPIC-N, connects communities with the human capital of universities to improve the quality of life and social wealth for all involved. EPIC-N is a nonprofit association of institutions that adopt the award-winning EPIC Model for university-community partnership. It brings together resources in academia — professors, students, laboratories, research libraries, existing curriculum — and creatively draws them together to tackle some of the biggest challenges in local communities. To date there are 30-plus active programs in the U.S. and abroad and the network is looking to expand.