20 Distillation Guidebook Co-Lab • 9.18–9.19 2025 How Can Academic Institutions Partner With Municipalities to Help Translate Research Into Practice? I approach partnerships between academia and municipalities with a simple premise: research is most meaningful when it is created with, rather than for, communities. Translation, in this sense, is not about delivering academic expertise to cities, but about co-producing knowledge from the very beginning in ways rooted in local experience and lived reality. This is where design research methods are especially powerful. Design research is inherently place-based, iterative, and relational. Methods like mapping, visual storytelling, participatory workshops, and scenario building don’t just help us analyze conditions; they help us learn about place alongside communities and municipal staff, rather than in parallel. They surface lived experience, spatial relationships, and everyday realities that FEATURE CL Bohannon
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