MetroLab, our team focused on state and local innovation, aims to take good ideas from the lab to local governments through intentional, regular and impact-driven policy alignment. This mission is two-fold: to put science in cities and to understand, support, and enable transformative partnerships between cities and universities. To further this mission, MetroLab has joined the Federation of American Scientists to build trusted capacity, provide essential services to ecosystems, and build place-based innovation.
How we do it
- MetroLab is an ecosystem of researchers and innovative local government leaders who want to work collaboratively.
- MetroLab manages programs to discover, implement, and scale innovative solutions and new thinking.
- MetroLab collaborates with local communities at a scale that then informs national policy.
- MetroLab empowers meaningful partnerships, making civic research actionable, and brings capacity (of all types) to cities and counties.
- MetroLab studies the constraints between local governments and universities; proactively managing paths forward resulting in measurable outcomes.
By mandating data centers that are clean, flexible, efficient, and beneficial, Colorado can bring opportunities to communities and enhance its overall infrastructure.
This report serves as a landscape assessment and toolbox from which local governments can negotiate an informed position when it comes to the levers available to them and includes a first-of-its kind analysis of eight executed community benefits agreements.
Colorado faces a projected shortage of more than 2,400 physicians by 2030, alongside the growing shortage nationwide, particularly in rural and certain underserved urban communities.
The Colorado Skills Map would define the technical and durable skills employers expect by sector and occupation, then attach a common skill identifier to ensure that credentials, courses, and work-based learning experiences are recognized as equivalent and portable across the state.
This guide includes ways to proactively engage communities to proactively shape GenAI policies such as community education, ways in which local governments can increase transparency, and more
At every turn, we asked what research is needed to further efforts on understanding the technology and its impact. Here you will find research questions as identified by the dozens of stakeholders involved with the task force.
This whitepaper identifies the unique ways AI is impacting cybersecurity and privacy protections, for example, citing the increasing difficulty in enforcing consent and the right to be forgotten mechanisms.
MetroLab’s 2023-2024 In the Lab Initiative focused on GenAI for Local Governments. This task force considered policy with a two-pronged approach: 1) What is the world of the possible and how can GenAI better city services; and 2) What processes and policies should be put into place to ensure a just, equitable, and accurate use of this technology.
As a result of this effort, MetroLab has published three resources: a community engagement guide, a call to the research community, and a cybersecurity and privacy white paper.
Data Governance and AI,
Transportation,
Emerging Technology in Communities
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems,
Regional Economic Development
Local Government,
Universities,
Partnerships
Community Partnerships,
Local Government