The Locally Initiated Research Partnerships (LIRP) program, sponsored by USDOJ's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) under Cooperative Agreement No. 1999-CK-WX-K007, promoted sound research and program evaluation in policing agencies as they developed community policing. For 39 projects representing police-university or police-research organizational partnerships, ILJ applied theory-based evaluation using an action research model. Cross-site study analyzed how local research topics were selected, how research was actually conducted, success factors in research partnerships, role of research in police departments, and appropriate partnership models.