We are excited to announce the transition to Common Ground Research Networks.
Some things are going to stay the same. At the heart of each Research Network is a creative and hardworking team. We remain committed to being your advocate; to crafting spaces of personal interaction that are intellectually and professionally rewarding; and to extending the reach of your research and its impact in the world.
We will continue to support you to:
For Common Ground, this is a chance to refresh our mission, clarify who we are, and restate why we do what we do.
It is also a kind of remembering. We began, in 1989, as just one “Research Network”—The Literacy and Education Research Network. In the more than 30 years since our beginning, we've expanded our scope, introducing new networks across a wide range of areas of contemporary human concern. As we move forward today, we return, now, to this founding principle—the idea of a “research network.”
At the organizational center of this metamorphosis, we are moving from Common Ground as a publishing enterprise to a not-for-profit corporation, organized and operated pursuant to the General Not For Profit Corporation Act of 1986, 805 ILCS 105/101.01, et seq., (the "Act") or the corresponding section of any future Act. This change reflects our organizational charter and core principles.
Common Ground’s agenda—then, as now—is mission driven. In conversation with our network leaders and advisory boards, we support new kinds of research communities that are innovative in their media and forward-thinking in their messages. We create the places of intellectual interaction and imagination that our future deserves—knowledge ecologies that are self-sustaining, independent, community created, and community validated.