UC Merced Resource Center for Community Engaged Scholarship (ReCCES)

The Resource Center for Community Engaged Scholarship (ReCCES) was established in response to the Chancellor’s Task Force on Community-Engaged Scholarship (CES). Within our first year at UCM, we created nearly two dozen CES projects that engage UCM faculty, students, and a variety of community organizations. ReCCES aims to support CES on campus by continuing to build an infrastructure for the practice. ReCCES links UC Merced to the local region by initiating community-university research collaborations & contributing to the national dialogue on CES. Since 2009, ReCCES has been a strong advocate for community-academic research partnerships to extend the reach and impact of research beyond the university, solve problems to improve people’s lives, and advance the effectiveness of higher education. ReCCES has been the catalyst for numerous engagement efforts and has facilitated dozens of community engaged research projects in the region. ReCCES was instrumental in earning UC Merced the Carnegie Foundation’s Elective Community Engagement Classification as well as creating a new Community Research and Service minor to provide hands-on applied research training for undergraduate students. ReCCES offers faculty seed grants and graduate student awards to support community engaged scholarship, numerous opportunities for undergraduate student to actively participate in research, and regularly hosts events to bring the community and campus together to network and solve problems. We believe Community Makes Research Matter!