Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED)
ACLED is an independent, impartial conflict monitor providing real-time data and analysis on violent conflict and protest in all countries and territories across the world. For example, the organization monitors wars like Iran and Ukraine. ACLED also tracks the activity of key armed groups around the world to produce data-driven analysis. They also provide country-based coverage, such as monitoring protest and extremist activity across the United States.
The BulletPoints Project
The project was established in 2019 by the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis through a California State Assembly bill. It was intended to teach medical and mental health care providers how to reduce the risk of firearm injury in their patients. The project created content that includes the epidemiology of firearm injury and death, individual and social determinants of risk, the basics of firearms, the risks and benefits of having firearms in the home, best practices for talking with at-risk patients about safety, safe storage counseling and other intervention tools for clinicians.
The Council on Criminal Justice
An independent and nonpartisan think tank focused on public safety and criminal justice. The council produces original analyses on crime data and publishes reports that cover three main areas: national trends, city-level fact sheets, and in-depth examinations of specific offenses. The organization also conducts a year-end analysis that examines yearly and monthly rates of 13 violent, property, and drug offenses reported in 40 U.S. cities that consistently report crime data. The council also publishes policy recommendations based on that data and research work.
Gun Violence Archive
This non-profit provides comprehensive and detailed data on gun violence incidents in the U.S. The online archive collects information on incidents from 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources daily to provide near-real time data about gun violence. Gun Violence Archive is an independent data and research group and is not affiliated with any advocacy organizations.
Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions
This is the recent merger of two leading research institutions: the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. The collaboration brings together respected gun violence researchers and prevention advocates to examine and promote policies and programs to improve community safety.
The National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research
This group supports rigorous research that broadens agreement on the facts associated with gun policy and promotes the development of fair and effective policies on preventing gun violence.
New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers
This is a state-funded research center conducting interdisciplinary research on the causes, consequences and solutions to gun-related violence. The center, founded by the Rutgers Schools of Public Health and Criminal Justice in 2018, partners with local, state and national experts to conduct research that identifies factors involved in gun violence with the intention to help develop interventions to reduce gun violence and translate science into effective programs and policies.
Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University
This applied research lab at American University’s School of Public Affairs is focused on preventing radicalization to violent extremism. The lab uses “a public health approach to design, test, and scale-up evidence-based tools and strategies that effectively reduce the threat of radicalization to harmful online and offline content including conspiracy theories, mis/disinformation, propaganda, and supremacist ideologies,” according to its website. The lab’s work supports individuals and communities to reject propaganda and extremist content, as well as empower them to intervene and interrupt early radicalization.
Research Society for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms
This is a network of scientists and practitioners who conduct and advance research to inform the prevention of and responses to firearm-related harms. The nonpartisan organization supports research on firearm-related harm prevention across a diversity of disciplines and approaches, such as “firearm injuries in all forms (e.g., suicide, homicide, unintentional, mass shootings); firearm injuries across the lifespan and from the individual to population level; and approaches ranging from individual behavior change, broader societal policies, clinical and policy, and firearm violence treatment and prevention,” according to its website.
The Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The Center produces research on all kinds of criminal justice related issues, including gun violence. The center also evaluates prevention strategies, tests the effectiveness of interventions and analyzes efforts to improve the impact and equity of justice systems.
University of California Davis Violence Prevention Research Program
Focuses on research and policy development, particularly on firearm violence and the causes, consequences and prevention of violence. The program helped to develop the public health approach to violence in the 1980s and continues to apply that framework in their research. The program also explores the connection between violence, substance abuse and mental illness.
The University of Chicago Crime Lab
Partners with cities and communities to use data and research to design and implement effective programs for improving public safety and advance justice in communities long impacted by both violence and unjust criminal justice systems.
The University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention
The institute conducts research on firearm violence to address the root causes of firearm violence and seek out prevention solutions. Initially launched as a University of Michigan presidential initiative in 2019 and an Institute in 2021, the institute fosters collaboration among researchers across many subject areas and collects input from nonacademic stakeholders — the people most impacted by firearm violence. The institute’s research covers issues like firearm suicide among teens, safe storage practices among rural families and the connection between racism and urban youth violence.
The Violence Project
This nonprofit and nonpartisan research center tracks mass shootings and maintains a database on mass shootings and mass shooters. Their data on mass public shootings extends from 1966 to the present. The project, which tracks mass shootings, defines a mass shooting as a shooting that takes place in public and is not connected to domestic violence or street violence, leaving out family annihilations. The organization has also conducted research based on the data it collects. For example, their K-12 School Shooting Database is an open-source research project that documents when a gun is fired, brandished (pointed at a person with intent), or a bullet hits school property, regardless of the number of victims, time, day, or reason.