“This milestone represents more than the progress of a building. It represents the momentum behind a shared vision for what is possible when the University of Michigan, Detroit and our partners come together,” said Scott Shireman, executive director of the U-M Center for Innovation in Detroit. “UMCI will create new opportunities for students, faculty, industry and the community to learn, collaborate and build what’s next.”

As part of the Witt Residency, Conrad Egyir will develop a multi-part interdisciplinary project titled The River That Remembers Us, an immersive exhibition examining water as a site of memory, transition, and Black epistemology.

Ren Farley’s rigor and warmth ran through his long-running course on Detroit’s history and future at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, capped each term by a daylong bus tour he narrated himself, from the Ford Rouge plant downtown, up Woodward, and through neighborhoods from Boston-Edison to Brightmoor. 

A new evaluation of ShotStoppers by U-M’s Poverty Solutions found that in the second year of the program, CVI zones saw a 33% decrease in homicide victims and a 38% decrease in nonfatal shooting victims from August 2024 to July 2025, compared to the previous 12 months. 

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University received a $1 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to launch a first-of-its-kind research initiative to examine how cities can reduce carbon emissions through clean energy investments, while ensuring the communities where these projects are built have a voice in the process and share their benefits.

Despite an encouraging outlook overall, the report suggests significant work remaining for the city’s economy to produce widely shared success. The economists estimate 34.4% of Detroit’s primary earners attained a living wage in 2024, compared with more than 44% of Cleveland’s working residents and nearly 60% of those in Chicago.