Research-Practice Partnership Grants Program

Deadline Date: September 13, 2024

Donor Name: Spencer Foundation

Grant Size: $100,000 to $500,000

The Spencer Foundation is pleased to announce the Research-Practice Partnership Grants Program to support education research projects that engage in collaborative and participatory partnerships.

They view partnerships as an important approach to knowledge generation and the improvement of education, broadly construed. Rigorous partnership work is intentionally organized to engage diverse forms of expertise and perspectives, across practitioners, scholars, and organizations, as well as disciplines and methods, in knowledge generation around pressing problems of practice and/or policy. Further, RPPs can facilitate the long-term accumulation of knowledge in new ways as researchers and practitioners work together to ask practitioner- and policy-relevant questions on key topics in specific settings over time. Many key problems of practice and policy are historically saturated and require multiple perspectives and long-term engagement if sustainable and systemic change is to occur. Over the long term, they anticipate that research conducted by RPPs will result in new insights into the processes, practices, routines, and policies that improve education for learners, educators, families, communities, and institutions where learning and teaching happen (e.g., schools, universities, community centers, parks, museums, other workplaces).

This grant program is open to existing partnerships between researchers and a broad array of practitioners. For example, practitioners might work in school districts, county offices of education, state educational organizations, universities, community-based organizations, and other social sectors that significantly impact learners’ lives. As such, they define practitioners broadly; they might be policy-makers, out-of-school-time providers and other informal educators, K-12 teachers and leaders, or families and other community members. They are open to applications from design-based research teams, networked improvement communities, place-based research alliances, and a wealth of other partnership arrangements.

Funding Information

• Budgets up to $400,000 and durations of up to three years.

Activities

• Research is fundamental to every research-practice partnership, and they expect research activities to be the central element of every proposal. In addition to detailing a plan for research, applicants should also prioritize plans for communicating and disseminating key findings and other important partnership activities that have the potential to foster positive educational changes.
• The following categories of activities are meant to be illustrative, but not exclusive, of activities in addition to the research that could be funded under this program. They expect proposed activities will be highly related to partnership type and context but will also, at their core, have the potential to make a contribution to improved educational practice and/or policy beyond the specific context in which scholars and practitioners are working.
  • Research Activities
    • Each proposal should describe new research that would be launched or existing research activities that would be expanded with the grant. Examples might include randomized trials of new curricula, participatory studies with learner and family coresearchers; design-based research focused on teacher classroom practice; policy advocacy or implementation; needs mapping with community partners; or deep descriptive work focused on a range of learner outcomes. They encourage a wide range of research methods and approaches.
  • Research Infrastructure 
    • Funds may be used for building and sustaining infrastructure needs for the research activities of the partnership. These infrastructure needs may apply to the full range of methodological approaches. Examples may include the development of surveys, assessment tools, and other instruments; the development of co-designed protocols; and the upkeep of data archives and matching systems. Additionally, administrative activities concerning data may be supported by this grant. These may include developing IRB and review protocols, creating standard data definitions, co-designing consent forms, and developing data security and privacy protocols.
  • Outreach, Communications, and Relationship Building 
    • Activities that strengthen the working relationship between partners and other stakeholders are also a possible component of the projects. Successful research-practice partnerships devote a great deal of time and attention to building and maintaining trust across stakeholder groups and within their partnership. Potential activities may include convening researchers, educators, learners, families, and other participants to co-design a research agenda; hiring a communication specialist and/or developing a strategy for communicating research findings to important constituents; supporting staff in the partner organizations to manage partnership relations; and preparing research reports and other publications to present the work of the partnership to the public.
  • Capacity Development 
    • Many research-practice partnerships seek to assist the practice partner in developing capacity to use research evidence and data in their daily decision-making. Funds could be used to learn how to better engage others in research, conduct better practice or policy-driven research, or to be better equipped to communicate complex research findings to practitioners, families, communities, or policy makers that were not primary partners.

Eligibility Criteria

• Proposals to the Research-Practice Partnership program must be for research and other activities aimed to support collaborative partnerships between academic researcher(s) and a broad array of practitioner(s) of education.
• Principal Investigators (PIs) and Co-PIs applying for a Research-Practice Partnership Grant are expected to have an earned doctorate in an academic discipline or professional field, or demonstrated professional experience appropriate for this program. Note: If the PI or Co-PI from the practice/policy side of the partnership does not have an earned doctorate, they are expected to have appropriate professional experience to serve in this role in the partnership. While graduate students may be part of the team, they may not be named the PI or Co-PI on the proposal.
• The PI must be affiliated with a non-profit organization or public/governmental institution that is willing to serve as the administering organization if the grant is awarded. The Spencer Foundation does not award grants directly to individuals. Examples include non-profit or public colleges, universities, school districts, and research facilities, as well as other non-profit organizations with a 501(c)(3) determination from the IRS (or equivalent non-profit status if the organization is outside of the United States).
• The PI associated with the administering organization for this grant could be either the practitioner/policymaker or researcher of the partnership. At least one Co-PI should be from the other member organization(s).
• Proposals are accepted from the U.S. and internationally. All proposals must be submitted in English and budgets must be proposed in U.S. Dollars.

Ineligible

• Research-Practice Partnership budget totals are limited to $400,000 including up to 15% indirect cost charges.
• The proposed duration of the grant may not be longer than 3 years.
• PIs and Co-PIs may only hold one active research grant from the Spencer Foundation at a time. (This restriction does not apply to the administering organization; organizations may submit as many proposals as they like as long as they are for different projects with different project teams.)
• PIs and Co-PIs may not submit more than one research proposal to the Spencer Foundation at a time. This restriction applies to the Small Grants Program, Large Grants Program, Racial Equity Research Grants Program, and this Research-Practice Partnership Grants Program. If the PI or any of the Co-PIs currently have a research proposal under consideration in any of these programs, they are required to wait until a final decision has been made on the pending proposal before they can submit a new proposal.

For more information, visit Spencer Foundation.