Not Business As Usual.

Our human-centered approach crosses disciplines and borders to generate new knowledge grounded in lived experience.

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"The Art of Discovery" by artist Martin Sati for DAWNING | Paper, ink, acrylic | 2024

Approach

DAWNING is a research lab where process is as important as results. Our work is built on personal relationships forged in the field. We work in close proximity to the people most affected by the issues we study, generating knowledge grounded in lived experience.

Knowledge In The Public Interest

We make complex issues accessible without simplifying them. Guided by humility and integrity, we follow the evidence wherever it leads and aim to deepen understanding of the challenges shaping our world.

  • Method

    We use a mixed-methods approach to research design, data collection and analysis, and narrative-building. Through literature reviews, in-depth interviews, documentary photography, film, and graphic novel techniques, we provide ground-up insights that make complex issues approachable.

  • People

    Our projects are the product of teamwork. We work across the globe in tight-knit teams of 10 to 20 in pursuit of a common goal, always incorporating local specialists and fellows. That critical circle of trust and shared resources brings us closer to the issues, and to one another.

  • Impact

    Since 2014, we have completed 15 large-scale projects through collaboration with over 200 professionals from 25 nationalities. We create fellowship opportunities for local professionals who share in our methods and findings. Together we create work designed for civic discussion in press, books, exhibits, and films.

  • In-House Design

    We are not divided into cubicles – we are a deeply collaborative organization. From the studio to the field, we take care of every detail of a project, from ideation to execution. We don’t subcontract at any step of the process – we bring people into our team to do it with us.

  • Global Readiness

    Our nimble team has worked for years to build partnerships that allow us to work all over the world in service of the most difficult-to-access communities. Wherever we land, we’re always growing in our capacity to show up, listen, and respect.

  • Research Agendas

    Our global research agendas around social and environmental issues shape our projects, and not the other way around. Our long-term vision of longitudinal, comparative work is intended to deepen the quality of our findings, widen our impact, and nurture lasting partnerships.

A Scientific Approach

Social science research in global affairs is dominated by quantitative work that is close-ended and top-down. DAWNING’s approach relies on triangulation of data, methods, researchers, and locations to elevate our ground-up, open-ended qualitative research to the levels of excellence of the best quantitative work. We are pioneering a new way of doing things, demonstrating the value of applying a different lens to the study and analysis of complex global challenges –and how we communicate about them.

Through the Lens of Art

Our cameras and paint brushes are not just an open gate to imagination, but critical tools in the pursuit of truth that illuminate and lend credibility to our research findings. By using art as a platform for scientific discovery we increase engagement and restore the humanity to complex issues. DAWNING is one of the few research organizations in the world that incorporates documentary photographers, graphic novelists and other artists at every stage of scientific inquiry, not as gimmicks but as doorways to new discovery.

Grounded in Fieldwork

We go to the field to learn, not to confirm what we think we already know. Paths to new insights are unpredictable and hard to walk. That is the driving force that keeps us humble and hungry, and always brings us back for more. Our fieldwork approach naturally blends rigor with improvisation in organic collaborations with each other and the people we meet along the way. That first-hand contact with the issues, under the sun and against the clock, is the heart of what we do.

An Approach Based on Values

We are not entitled to anything. Nobody owes us their stories, no matter how far we’ve traveled to learn them. Our work always relies on the generosity of strangers, with whom we must build trust from scratch.

Trust can only be built from a space of integrity.

We’d rather walk away from a project than sacrifice our basic principles. We take care to guard and improve upon those principles in every project, with each step we take.

In the process, we aim to create a sense of belonging and leave a legacy of cross-cultural collaboration that paves the way for lifelong relationships.

Our core belief in gender and racial equity is a continued effort to balance our teams with the type of talent and perspective that can only be born of diversity.

We always mentor and collaborate with locals as critical parts of our teams. This is an evolving part of our legacy.

Get to Know Our Work.

We are a research nonprofit committed to advancing new knowledge on environmental and social challenges across the globe.