The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute (Institute) is a nonpartisan, applied research and community outreach center at UNC Charlotte. Founded in 1969, the Institute is part of UNC Charlotte’s Metropolitan Studies and Extended Academic Programs, which includes a number of the university’s community engagement initiatives.
The mission of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute is to seek solutions to the social, economic, and environmental challenges facing our communities. This mission is evidenced and ingrained in the diversity of our projects, as well as in our efforts to democratize information through our web communications and community engagement. We carry out our mission through a range of services including research and analysis around economic, environmental, and social issues affecting the Charlotte region; public opinion surveys; and technical assistance and training in operations and data management.
The Institute for Social Capital, Inc. (ISC) was created in 2004 as a 501(c)3 created through the UNC Charlotte Foundation. ISC is an integrated data system of individual level administrative data from local agencies. ISC now operates as a research program of the Institute, with a nonprofit subsidiary of the Foundation of UNC Charlotte continuing to operate as the fiscal and legal steward of the ISC database for security reasons.
