Get Involved
Whether you run a city department, want to spend a year embedded in one, or have evidence to contribute — there is a path for you. The work is only useful if it compounds.
City Partnership
We work with city departments, county agencies, and public authorities to design, run, and report on low-cost randomized pilots. We handle study design, power analysis, randomization, and write-up — your team implements. No academic middlemen, no 18-month timelines.
Start a conversation →Municipal Fellow
The Municipal Fellows program places early-career researchers inside city departments for 12 months. Fellows design and run at least one randomized pilot, contribute findings to the Public Registry, and leave a replication-ready protocol behind. Applications open annually in March.
Apply for fellowship →Evidence Commons
Practitioners, academics, and policy analysts can submit documented experiments to the Public Registry. We verify sources, assign mechanism tags, and publish findings under a CC-BY license. You retain credit; the city that ran the experiment gets attribution. The field gets cumulative knowledge.
Submit an experiment →Contact
We read every message. If you are a city official, researcher, or practitioner with a question that does not fit the form, email hello@theexperimentsociety.org directly.
Common Questions
How much does a city partnership cost?
Partnerships are structured around the city's capacity. Small pilots (under 2,000 participants) are typically free — we treat them as research investments. Larger, multi-arm trials with dedicated staff time involve a fee that covers analyst time and reporting. We'll be direct about costs in the first call.
Do you work outside the United States?
Yes. The Public Registry documents experiments from 39 countries. We actively recruit city partners in lower- and middle-income countries where marginal impact per dollar is highest. We have worked with municipal governments in Latin America, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
What if we already ran an experiment but didn't pre-register it?
Submit it anyway. The registry accepts retrospective documentation. We note pre-registration status transparently so readers can weight evidence accordingly. An honest null result from an unregistered trial is still valuable — probably more valuable than it sitting in a filing cabinet.
Are Municipal Fellows paid?
Fellows receive a stipend of $58,000 for the 12-month placement, plus health coverage and a $3,000 research budget. Host cities are asked to provide desk space and access to administrative data. Fellows are not city employees — they report to The Experiment Society.
What is the timeline from first contact to running a pilot?
City partnerships typically move from first call to randomization in 8–14 weeks, depending on IRB requirements and data access. We have pre-approved ethics protocols for common intervention types (benefits outreach, permit simplification, tax reminder) that skip the lengthy review process.
Newsletter
Quarterly dispatch: new experiments added to the registry, practitioner notes from active city partnerships, and one pattern from the evidence base worth acting on.
Subscribe to the dispatch →