Innovation and Discovery

Achieving Lumina’s mission requires us to take stock of the rapidly changing world around us. Through our innovation and discovery work, we’re asking, “What is education for?” We want to ensure that society realies the full benefits of increased attainment. As we work to improve education beyond high school, we’re also exploring how these improvements can help solve complex societal problems.

We look at the broader social and political environment to help Lumina and our partners respond effectively. When we see that an area could benefit from stronger strategies in higher education and the workforce, we get more involved through grantmaking and networking. We aim to provide flexible funding early on to encourage creativity and innovation, working with a range of partners committed to collaboration across different sectors.

Overview

As these ideas develop, we look for new ways to support their growth, such as bringing in new resources, strengthening networks, or integrating these ideas into Lumina’s main strategies. We also look for opportunities to co-fund and share what we’ve learned with others in the field.

Our work currently focuses on how higher education can strengthen democracy and address climate change. We are also starting to explore Artificial Intelligence, Gen Z, and rethinking colleges as community anchors.

The three roles of Lumina’s Innovation and Discovery work:

• Analyzing global trends and potential risks that are relevant to Lumina’s goals. 

• Identifying new, emerging issues and providing early-stage funding to support innovative ideas. 

• Supporting the growth of these ideas to create a broader impact. 

Addressing climate change

Lumina began exploring climate issues in 2021, recognizing that climate change would be one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. While the climate sector was growing quickly—with growing demand for new skills and credentials–higher education’s role has too often been limited, despite strong student interest.

Our early investments have been in three areas:

• Agenda setting and policy implementation: We’ve supported efforts to highlight the unique role of higher education in addressing climate change and helped institutions take advantage of new federal climate investments.
• Narrative and learning strategies: We’ve provided resources to connect climate work with greater inclusion, aiming to attract a wide array of students and faculty across disciplines.
• Green jobs: As the United States expands its clean energy economy and other “green” fields, we have supported research to show the coming workforce changes and education and training strategies for implementing federal green investments.

Strengthening democracy

Since 2021, Lumina has focused on strengthening democracy and promoting civic engagement. We’ve built on existing civic movements in higher education and Lumina’s mission, which includes “active citizenship” as a core goal. Graduates should not only vote but be active in their communities, know how to work across difference, and be able to tell good information from bad. Though most colleges offer opportunities for this kind of learning, their efforts are often isolated, only available to students who seek them out, and not connected to a national strategy.

Our work is addressing three main areas:

• Conditions for democratic renewal and redesign: Working with partners both inside and outside higher education, we have examined how to link improved democracy with better opportunities for all, explored new bipartisan efforts, and developed new frameworks and training programs for institutional leaders.
• Teaching and learning for active citizenship: We have worked with partners inside higher education to scale innovative civic and community-based learning experiences and deepen the evidence base of the factors contributing to their success. We are exploring how to aggregate resources and help institutions improve their ability to diagnose and respond to identified challenges re: democratic and civic engagement.
• We are also considering including more sectors and new perspectives in this work.
  Response to threats to freedom to learn: We have worked with content experts and higher education membership organizations to develop resources on promoting resilience and resistance to hate, extremism, and polarization.

Lumina supports democracy-strengthening work in other portfolios as well, notably including Strategic Communication’s support for local journalism. [HAVE STEPHANIE INCLUDE MORE?]