Wiliam T. Grant Foundation Announces Institutional Challenge Grant to Support Research-Practice Partnerships
The William T. Grant Foundation announced a new grants program that encourages research institutions to build sustained research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
Starting in 2017, one $650,000, three-year Institutional Challenge Grant will be awarded annually to an eligible research institution that partners with a state or local agency department and division or a nonprofit organization that is open to the general public. The award may be renewable for an additional two-year term. Research institutions will need to build the capacity of researchers to produce relevant work and the capacity of agency and nonprofit partners to use research. Equally important, research institutions will need to shift their policies and practices to value collaborative research.
Research-practice partnerships are long-term, mutually beneficial collaborations that promote the production and use of rigorous and relevant research evidence. These partnerships are a promising strategy for exposing researchers to local practice and policy questions and equipping youth-serving organizations with new knowledge and tools to improve outcomes.
The grant seeks to address obstacles that inhibit partnerships, including limited resources and capacity, as well as internal institutional policies that may discourage researchers from participating in partnerships.
“Institutional change is an ambitious goal, but we believe that this is what is needed to build sustained partnerships that produce and use research evidence to reduce inequality in youth outcomes” said Adam Gamoran, President of the Foundation. “Research-practice partnerships are often difficult to establish and sustain, in part because research produced by partnerships has, unfortunately, not always been valued by institutions. One goal of this program is to challenge these institutions to prioritize research that can be useful and used in the policy and practice arenas.”
The new grants program builds on the Foundation’s long-standing commitment to connect research, policy, and practice. It replaces the Distinguished Fellows program, which, for over ten years, awarded fellowships to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. By shifting the focus to an institutional level, the Foundation hopes to further its interests in increasing the use and usefulness of research evidence in ways that reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
The online application will open on June 15, 2017 and full proposals are due on September 12.