Collaboratory®, the pioneering higher education engagement-tracking platform developed at UNC Greensboro, has won the 2025 ARIS Impact Innovation Award.
The Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) brings communities and researchers together for societal impact. Each year, the global organization presents the ARIS Impact Innovation Award to recognize novel approaches to research engagement and translation.
“UNCG is proud of Collaboratory® and its growing impact as an innovative data platform that was launched at our university and has emerged to have an impact on organizations across the country,” says Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement Sherine Obare.
Collaboratory® was created at UNCG in 2011 by the university’s Institute for Community and Economic Engagement Director Dr. Emily Janke, then-ICEE staff member and graduate student Kristin Medlin, and collaborator Dr. Barbara Holland. The platform is designed to track, report, and build awareness of hundreds of UNCG community engagement and public service activities and relationships.
The technology has been licensed externally since 2015 and is now part of technology company HandsOn Connect Cloud Solutions. It has become a critical tool for over 60 institutions committed to public engagement, documenting 8,300 community engagement initiatives involving over 11,000 community organizations, 2,100 faculty and staff, 2,800 course sections, and 2,000 campus units. It is also the largest and most comprehensive source of data, nationally, for cross-institutional research on community engagement activities and partnerships.
“As a platform dedicated to helping higher education institutions systematically track and leverage their community engagement activities, Collaboratory embodies [our] mission,” ARIS wrote in their award announcement.
Award nominators lauded the Collaboratory for transforming data into actionable knowledge, helping institutions build capacity, and driving progress.
“Collaboratory empowers higher education institutions to articulate the full scope and impact of their community engagement and public service,” says Dr. Janke.
“It supports alignment of engagement activities with institutional and global priorities, facilitates data-driven decision-making, promotes promotion and tenure processes that better recognize community-engaged scholarship, captures and communicates the collective impact of funded research projects, and more. Now, more than ever, is the time to tell our story of public commitment and impact.”
Photo from 2025 ARIS Summit of Matthew Johnson, Kristin Medlin, Lauren Wendling, and Susan D. Renoe. Medlin is a UNCG grad, current UNCG visiting senior scholar, and director of research at HandsOn Connect Cloud Solutions
