The Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) awarded the University of Minnesota’s Driven to Discover (D2D) initiative with the 2025 Impact Innovations Award. The award recognizes the D2D program and its team for creating new processes and tactics for achieving societal impact through innovative approaches to engagement, translation, measurement, and other strategic areas.
Since 2014, D2D has operated the D2D Research Facility at the Minnesota State Fair. The program provides opportunities for researchers to engage the public directly to participate in research studies. Over the past 10 years, nearly half a million fairgoers have visited D2D, and more than 150,000 have participated in the 400+ studies from units all across the University, including health science, education, liberal arts, social science, and natural science. D2D has also piloted its model in county fairs, offering rural communities the chance to meet with and connect to scientists. Logan Spector, Ph.D., from the Medical School’s Department of Pediatrics, and Ellen Demerath, Ph.D., from the School of Public Health’s Division of Epidemiology and Community Health are co-directors of the D2D research facility.
“D2D’s mission is to create a space for Minnesotans to ‘pull back the curtain’ on university research, allowing people the opportunity to engage directly with the scientific process, ask questions of the research teams, and participate on the spot in a variety of different studies – all right in the middle of the Minnesota State Fair,” said Annie Hotop, State Fair Research Facility Manager. Demerath added, “It’s an honor to be recognized by ARIS with its annual Impact Innovations Award and a great way to cap off our 10th anniversary of D2D. This award inspires us to keep moving forward, advancing the broader impacts of University research and improving the public’s scientific literacy and engagement.”
Awardees will be honored at the 2025 ARIS Summit in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in April.
“We’re thrilled that this decade-long, groundbreaking work was honored at a national level,” said Laurie Van Egeren, Vice Provost for Public Engagement and a co-Principal Investigator for ARIS. “I’m proud to share the unique ways that the University of Minnesota seeks to meet with communities and share the critical research that improves the lives of people in the state and globally.”
This article originally appeared on the website of the University of Minnesota Office for Public Engagement and is available here.
