As Baltimore’s largest anchor institution, Johns Hopkins University has long recognized that its success is inextricably linked to the success and well-being of its city and its neighbors.

GovEx’s work in Baltimore started soon after the organization launched, with the Cities Outcome/Stat project that created a set of measurable indicators aligned to the mayor’s priorities. The work has continued with a series of evidence-based governance projects through four mayoral administrations.

GovEx partnered with the city to provide technical assistance and data and performance management training to spur innovation within City Hall, leverage data and evidence to improve resident outcomes, and better engage with the community.
For example, GovEx partnered with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to inventory the condition of Maryland schools, revealing serious disparities in the condition of Baltimore City schools compared to the rest of the state. The results can help target budgets to areas of highest need.

Mayor Brandon Scott at the 2024 Bloomberg Philanthropies City Data Alliance Convening: “Through data, we have the opportunity to improve every one of our residents’ lives.

GovEx worked with Baltimore to develop the Baltimore Data Academy, a data practices curriculum to upskill data talent across the city’s workforce. In just a few months, more than 500 city employees from virtually every city department took Academy courses, which were developed in collaboration with GovEx. The Academy has already been replicated in other cities.

Also in 2023, Beth Blauer, who founded GovEx and oversees its work as the Associate Vice Provost for Public Sector Innovation at Johns Hopkins University, was temporarily embedded in Baltimore’s City Hall, working with the city’s Chief Administrative Officer to, as Mayor Brandon Scott said in his State of the City address, “help us better leverage data and performance to drive innovation and improvements to city service delivery.”