"Community Engaged Research for Public Impact: Process to Policy" is the theme of the Penn State Child Study Center's (CSC) 2026 Innovation Hub Symposium taking place on Friday, Feb. 6, in the Nittany Lion Inn Ballroom at University Park.
CSC's Innovation Hub Symposium is a biennial event designed to examine and explore innovative ways to conceptualize translational research around a particular topic. When choosing a topic for each symposium, CSC directors and faculty identify an area of research in which a significant gap has emerged between typical practice and recent research findings. The center then presents the symposium and undertakes a series of activities designed to close that gap - the goal is to serve as a national hub of innovation in translating research into practice.
The selection of this year's topic, community-engaged research, reflects the burgeoning growth in that area - and the paradigm shift from working on communities to working with them - over the past two decades.
The 2026 CSC Innovation Hub Symposium provides a forum for scholars and community members to critically engage in this space, focusing on community-engaged research perspectives, methods and approaches with diverse populations, in multiple geographies, across the lifespan. In collaboration with the Community Engaged Research, Action, and Partnerships unit in Penn State's Social Science Research Institute, the interdisciplinary symposium seeks to bring Penn State faculty together with community partners, practitioners and others to learn more about community engaged research and how to harness this approach to improve the lives of diverse children, youth and families.
Featured speakers for the event include:
- Velma McBride Murray, Lois Autrey Betts Endowed Chair and University Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Human Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University
- Elan C. Hope, vice president for research and evaluation, Policy Research Associates
- Dawn P. Witherspoon, Penn State professor of psychology and director of Parents and Children Together
- Lori A. Francis, Penn State professor of biobehavioral health
- Kristen P. Goessling, director of participatory research at Penn State Center Philadelphia
