The Evans Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) is a policy lab at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance that partners with communities, organizations, and government to design, test, and scale policy innovations for the public good.
This means we bring people together across traditional boundaries—like between government and community or research and practice—to tackle complex policy challenges in Washington State and beyond.
Through collaborative initiatives, research-practice partnerships, and capacity-building work, we are a bridge connecting the Evans community to public serving organizations and people in our region; and we exist to help organizations design more effective and equitable solutions grounded in both rigorous evidence and lived experience.
Whether we’re facilitating convenings, conducting research on critical issues, or training communities in collaborative governance skills, our work is relational at its core. We use a human-centered design process because the people closest to policy challenges often have the clearest insight into what might actually work—and because solutions designed with communities, not for them, are more equitable, implementable, and effective
What We Offer
We help organizations solve complex problems by combining research with input from diverse voices closest to the issue, creating practical solutions that improve outcomes.
Collaborative Initiatives
We create space for innovation on tough public challenges. By bringing together people with different experiences and expertise, we help groups dig into root causes, explore creative solutions, and test what actually works. These aren’t quick fixes—they’re sustained initiatives that grow and change as we learn, requiring commitment from multiple partners and investment from various funding sources over time.
Public Leader Training & Support
We train and support leaders who want to strengthen relationships and foster genuine collaboration in their communities. We share practical tools for facilitation and authentic engagement that you can apply in your own work.
Explore Our Projects
Our Approach
Public policy challenges are complex, but our core belief is straightforward: effective collaboration is a bridge to a better world.
We facilitate inclusive community processes to help stakeholders identify, examine, and address shared challenges. Our pragmatic approach blends lived experience and professional expertise to spark shared learning and drive actionable solutions to create public impact.
EPIC supports community partners as they navigate the three phases of human-centered design:
- analysis of the current situation
- exploration and refinement of ideas
- testing promising interventions
By putting people at the center of community problem-solving, we build improved public programs and services that consider context to ensure they are more effective, efficient, and equitable for all. Furthermore, research suggests that the relational nature this work creates spillover effects as organizations bridge evidence and engagement to build their collaborative capacity to tackle future challenges.
Meet the EPIC Team
Connect With Us
EPIC Newsletter: The Thread
Our newsletter is for changemakers, practitioners, researchers, and community leaders working to strengthen our region. Like following a thread through fabric, this bi-annual touchpoint helps trace the connections between people, ideas, and initiatives that are weaving improved policy outcomes across the Pacific Northwest. We want to share opportunities to collaborate, keep you updated on EPIC’s work, share what we’re learning, and highlight ways you can support each other’s efforts. Our goal is to build a community of practice around collaborative policy innovation, creating lasting relationships that sustain the values we share: equity, democratic participation, and the belief that we’re all better together.
Tools for Practice: The Public Service ReDesign Toolkit
https://redesigntoolkit.io/ Explore the ReDesign Toolkit
Public Service ReDesign Toolkit is the Evans School’s public collection of what we use in practice to facilitate conversations, prototype, and document learning. The toolkit is organized into sections that correspond to the iterative three-phase human-centered design process that we use at EPIC.
Let’s Collaborate
If you’re interested in partnering or learning more about our work, contact us and a team member will be in touch mailto:evansepic@uw.edu.
What Our Partners Are Saying
The Evans Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) is a policy lab at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance that brings together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the public to co-design actionable solutions to complex societal problems so that our public systems serve all individuals equitably and justly.
Our work involves the blending of human-centered design principles, traditional mixed methods policy research designs, inquiry into current implementation practices, and the perspectives of those with lived experience to inform recommendations for action. Through a unique toolkit of facilitation, research, and implementation support, EPIC works with public agencies and nonprofit organizations to share knowledge, explore and analyze ideas, and develop plans and action steps that keep the needs and perspectives of stakeholders centered to build institutional to support systems change over time.
Creating and implementing public policy solutions to today’s issues is complex. EPIC provides project leadership to help stakeholders seek solutions to complex public problems with approaches and ideas as unique as the problems themselves. Through facilitation, research, and implementation support, we convene stakeholders to share, learn, and practice – together.
EPIC generates open-source tools including policy design and implementation frameworks, evaluation rubrics, community trainings and courses, research resources, and a Public Service ReDesign Toolkit. Through this, we support actionable recommendations that teams in academia, government agencies, non-profits, and community organizations can use to enact change in their environments.
We work with our partners in the following ways:
“This was an exceptional team. I have worked with teams the last 5 years and they get better every single year.” Sego Jackson, Strategic Advisor, Waste Prevention and Product Stewardship, Seattle Public Utilities (2020-2021 Capstone Client)
“We couldn’t have asked for a better team. The team clearly communicated scope and schedule and stuck to it…The team really went the extra mile by giving extra presentations to King County Metro’s Commute Trip Reduction stakeholders and the City of Shoreline’s Planning Commission.” Nora Daley-Peng, Senior Transportation Planner, City of Shoreline (2020-2021 Capstone Client)
Overall, this was a positive experience. I believe our project had a great balance of data/statistical evaluation along with policy evaluation and the topic was meaningful which made it a mutually beneficial endeavor. The team was professional, curious, and wrote an excellent academic paper. Their final presentation was a great summary of a complex topic. Sarah Olson, Deputy Director, Lynnwood Parks, Recreation & Cultural Arts (2020-2021 Capstone Client)
It is a great program. The amount of value we received for the cost is incredible. I wished I could have hired the student team to work for me full time! They are of the highest caliber team. Jessica Engel, Water Quality Planner, King County (2019-2020 Capstone Client)
[T]he team was phenomenal! They delivered a solid set of recommendations and best practices for how to program cultural space with a racial equity and social justice lens. Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar, Impact and Assessment Manager, City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (2017-2018 Capstone Client)