The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to deliver a platform, primarily for colleges and universities, to both prevent and respond to campus sexual assault. One in five female college students will be sexually assaulted during their college careers. Only 10% of victims will report the assaults; the remainder, lacking reporting option information and guidance on recovery, will struggle with an aftermath that can lead to academic challenges and abandoned career plans. Among the 10% of reported assaults, many institutions struggle to respond effectively, leading to negative, high-profile headlines. More than 300 colleges and universities are currently under investigation by the United States Department of Education Civil Rights Office for mishandling sexual assault investigations. While colleges and universities are federally mandated to address campus sexual assault, they lack evidence-based methods to prevent and respond to sexual assault. Lawsuits (from victims and the accused), government fines, college safety ratings, and unchanging assault statistics have led to a commercial opportunity for a research-informed platform designed to align campus sexual assault prevention and response tools and resources.
This I-Corps project aims to explore the commercial potential of a research-informed, evidence-based platform to provide comprehensive, uniquely tailored information to support victims of campus sexual assault, aid in prevention efforts, and promote student safety. The heart of the platform is a mobile application with a design informed by qualitative studies with the target audience, and content informed by 15+ years of sexual violence research, and by input from practitioners in this field. This platform addresses sexual assault prevention and response comprehensively by: 1) Providing research-informed guidance for victims and allies available in a smartphone app and on the web; 2) Using a decision-tree approach to help victims understand options and choose a path forward; 3) Delivering interactive assault prevention tools to help reduce the incidence of assault; 4) Giving schools control of the content, to help ensure assaults are correctly managed; and 5) Providing an implementation toolkit, so schools can easily engage students in the platform's campus adaptation.
