Publication

Inclusive innovation—the idea of introducing technologies designed for and by the poor to boost economic growth in impoverished communities—often misses the real problems facing these communities and champions solutions that benefit entrepreneurs at...

Register for the Community Partnerships Playbook webinarAs the popularity of community engagement grows among technologists and academics, it is vital to ensure that they engage communities in ways that benefit the  people they claim to serve and do...

The basic model of technological innovation in the U.S. has relied upon academic research and private sector commercialization. While the standard approach has stimulated macroeconomic growth, produced many valuable products, and created jobs,...

Since World War I, defense funding has been a driver of social science’s growth. The dense ties between social science and defense agencies benefitted social research but also attracted decades of heavy criticism. This long and entangled history has...

Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are being used by a growing number of public and private entities to track drivers’ movements and location. The use of the technology is almost entirely unregulated and can be subject to abuse, so some...

Ford School assistant professor Ben Green, and an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, says that if algorithms are to improve society, focusing only on whether they’re mathematically “fair” won’t get us...

In an era when the Indian government has prioritized women's menstrual health and movies like Netflix's "Period. End of Sentence" are garnering worldwide attention, the distribution of disposable sanitary pads to women in India's rural areas has...

The use of large language models could transform many facets of modern life, including how policymakers assess public sentiment about pending legislation, how patients evaluate their medical care and how scientists could translate research findings...

Who gets to define the ethics behind the use of technology in society? The discussion has become more pressing amid controversies related to misinformation, privacy, and algorithmic bias.  Ben Green explores this question as editor of a special...

Ford School professor Shobita Parthasarathy is calling for a change in innovation policy to center “equity as a public value” as the scientific community ponders “the next 75 years of science policy.” In her essay Innovation as a Force for Equity,...

A lack of information is an often overlooked but important cause of pollution exposure among low-income households or communities of color, according to University of Michigan researchers. The researchers say the disproportionate exposure of...

In October 2021, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) put out a request for public comment on the use and regulation of AI-enabled biometric technologies, including facial recognition. OSTP invited comment on a wide range...

The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) recently awarded Ben Green, assistant professor and postdoctoral scholar, the Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award. The award is for Green’s paper, “The Flaws of Policies Requiring Human Oversight of Government...

Machine learning is increasingly used for government decision-making to predict adverse outcomes. For instance, many cities and states in the U.S. have adopted pretrial risk assessments that inform decisions about whether to release criminal...

The global effort to develop and distribute COVID-19 vaccines has progressed despite myriad challenges. Yet the final step—shots in arms—meets resistance among some that can't easily be overcome by science and supply chains. Vaccine hesitancy—a...

As the Biden administration embarks on its first hundred days, experts from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy have produced a series of policy briefs on key issues. Download a PDF of this brief or read the web-formatted version below. By...

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed policymaking biases that have ignored poor and marginalized communities, argues Ford school professor Shobita Parthasarathy. In a paper, Innovation Policy, Structural Inequality, and COVID-19, published in the...

Facial recognition (FR) technology should be banned for use in schools, according to a new study by the Science, Technology and Public Policy program (STPP) at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.  The study...