THE CENTER PROPOSES A NEW SCIENCE TO STUDY VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN For more than three decades, the most visible presence of the violence against women movement has been found in battered women's shelters, rape crisis centers, courthouses, police stations, and hospital emergency rooms where advocates and other professionals have intervened, protected, and helped restore the lives of women and children faced with violence. Over time, the field expanded to capitol buildings and state houses where laws were changed and policies adopted to address rape, intimate partner violence and stalking. A field of research on violence against women has also existed for more than thirty years, its historical roots grown out of a belief that research must lead to understanding violence, not for sake of science alone, but because we must end the systematic assault and killing of women. In the past few years, several critiques have been written about the state of research on violence against women, noting that weaknesses in this research area are inhibiting a full scientific exploration of these crimes and their impacts.  In April 2009 the journal Violence Against Women published a special issue to advance conversation about the state of the field and its future direction.  The central paper of that special issue was authored by Center Director Jordan.  It argued for moving beyond "research agendas" and proposed creation of a transdisciplinary science for the study of violence against women.  On June 3 – 4, 2009 the Center for Research on Violence Against Women and Violence Against Women hosted an invited planning meeting to further the conversations begun in the symposium special issue. The central question of the meeting focused on whether the field would be strengthened by crafting the study of violence against women as a science.  The national meeting was opened by UK Provost Kumble Subbaswamy and co-chaired by Carol Jordan and Claire Renzetti, the editor of Violence Against Women. Participants included the National Academy of Science and an interdisciplinary panel of researchers, national and state advocacy organizations, and federal funding agency representatives. This national meeting is just one example of the cutting edge role being played by the Center on a national scale.  "This Center and our faculty partners across UK have an extraordinary opportunity with this meeting to advance the national conversation on the state of research in the field of violence against women," said Carol Jordan, director of the Center.  "Our role is not to observe that conversation, our role is to help shape it," she said.