We are delighted to announce that this year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bezos Family Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, and Spencer Foundation have joined us to award $2.6 million in funding for four new Institutional Challenge Grants.
The four research-practice partnerships selected as this year’s Institutional Challenge Grant winners are:
- Fordham University, in partnership with Graham, will develop trauma-informed, career-connected pathways for youth in the Bronx impacted by the child welfare system.
- The University of Georgia, in partnership with the Multi-Agency Alliance for Children (MAAC), will identify and address educational inequities experienced by transition-age youth in foster care.
- The University of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania, will examine the effectiveness of state policies in addressing youth homelessness.
- Virginia Commonwealth University, in partnership with Richmond Public Schools, will develop family-centered approaches that support middle school pathways to postsecondary success for multilingual learners.
The Institutional Challenge Grant encourages university-based research institutes, schools, and centers to grow existing research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. Each grantee receives a three-year award of $650,000, with the opportunity to apply for continuation funding of $350,000 to further strengthen the partnership.
“When universities and communities work together, they demonstrate just how powerful engaged research can be to address some of the most pressing issues facing young people today. We are proud to support these partnerships as they advance their research agendas, challenge their institutions to reward collaborative, community-embedded scholarship, and work toward reducing inequality,” said Adam Gamoran, president of the William T. Grant Foundation.
As part of the program, partnerships’ research will aim to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people in the United States.
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Together, the University of Georgia and MAAC will identify predictors of postsecondary success and systemic barriers for youth aging out of foster care and evaluate MAAC’s LEADS program, which provides wraparound educational supports for youth in foster care in two counties.
“Ultimately, the UGA-MAAC partnership will generate a better understanding of the conditions and resources that lead to success in college and beyond for young people who have previously experienced foster care and will amplify the importance of youth voice in community-engaged scholarship. We are excited to share our work with partners for system wide impact to better outcomes for young people in foster care,” said Erik Ness, director of the McBee Institute of Higher Education at UGA, and Heather Rowles, executive director of MAAC.
With their Institutional Challenge Grant, the partnership between Virginia Commonwealth University and Richmond Public Schools will examine how multilingual family participation in school-based improvement teams leads to the development of more culturally responsive family engagement strategies that increase belonging and agency for multilingual families and enhance knowledge about educational pathways and advocacy for children.
“What excites us most is the chance to deepen an existing partnership through joint inquiry on a problem that matters, improving outcomes for multilingual youth in Richmond. We are coming to this work with the recognition that we don’t have the specific solution to the challenge we face. However, we believe that by building a learning community between VCU, RPS and the multilingual families they serve, we can collaboratively build better systems,” said Jesse Senechal, executive director of the Institute for Collaborative Research and Evaluation at VCU, and Danielle Greene-Bell, chief engagement officer at Richmond Public Schools.
Grantee institutions must shift their policies and incentives to value collaborative work and strengthen institutional infrastructure to reward community-engaged research.
At Fordham, “Revising tenure and promotion guidelines to formally recognize youth-led and co-produced scholarship tells faculty that this work isn’t a detour from serious scholarship. It is serious scholarship,” said Akane Zusho, Chair of the Division of Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy in the Graduate School of Education, which is partnering with Graham. The school also plans to reform IRB templates, consent forms, and authorship protocols and seed new microcredentials to support doctoral students interested in engaged research. “When those changes are paired with research processes and authorship practices actually designed for participatory work, the system starts working for this kind of research instead of against it.”
The University of Pennsylvania will aim to formalize secure data use agreements with the Governor’s Office to facilitate additional partnerships between faculty and the state, develop programming and guidebooks for faculty interested in partnership research, and lay the groundwork to develop a curriculum and create seed funding for researchers interested in policy partnerships with the state.
“The partnership will provide a valuable blueprint for how Penn faculty can meaningfully collaborate with state government institutions by developing shared goals and expectations, establishing dedicated channels for collaboration and data-sharing, and building trust and capacity for using rigorous research to advance effective policy,” said Vincent Reina, founder and faculty director of the Housing Initiative at Penn, which is partnering with the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania. “Through documenting the lessons learned in this joint effort, we will create a guidebook and webinar series for Penn faculty to replicate this model and develop a curriculum to encourage emerging research-practice collaborations to become formal partnerships.”
The partnerships must also enhance the capacity of nonprofits or public agencies to use evidence in their decision-making.
Through the partnership with Fordham, Graham will build research-use capacity by engaging youth and caregivers in research and by building staff expertise in improvement science, trauma-responsive practices, and effective university partnering.
“By engaging youth and caregivers in research to co-design our offerings, we will directly address pressing challenges that NYC communities are facing, including poverty and injustice. With this youth and family lens on our initiatives, we anticipate that youth and families will find greater value in what we offer and we expect to see stronger community engagement,” said Kimberly Watson, President and CEO of Graham.
The Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania will boost its short-term research capacity related to homelessness and emerging issues and develop data infrastructure for current and future research projects.
“We are most excited about the opportunity to build something that lasts beyond a single research project, a durable partnership between leading researchers and the Commonwealth that strengthens how Pennsylvania uses evidence to improve the lives of young people. We hope this work will produce actionable research on youth homelessness while also leaving behind a stronger data infrastructure, stronger relationships, and a model for future research-practice partnerships,” said Akbar Hossain, Secretary of Policy and Planning for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
“The Annie E. Casey Foundation is proud to join fellow philanthropic partners in supporting work that strengthens the connection between research and practice in service of young people,” said Stephen Plank, Vice President for Research, Evaluation, Evidence and Data at Casey. “We know that data and evidence are most powerful when they deepen our understanding of young people’s experiences and point us toward solutions that truly work. These partnerships reflect a shared commitment to using this knowledge to address barriers to opportunity, especially for young people who have been involved in systems such as foster care. By investing in efforts that elevate evidence, reflect the real experiences of young people and share what works, we can help build more responsive systems where all young people have the opportunity to thrive.”
“When community partners shape research questions and help interpret evidence, the work stays focused on what matters most for improving practice,” said Bezos Family Foundation Managing Director of Strategic Initiatives Jody Rosentswieg. “Universities bring critical resources and rigorous methods to answer those questions, and this funding helps broaden support for community-engaged research across their institutions.”
“We are pleased to support these Research Practice Partnerships, which hold strong potential to improve the conditions that shape young people’s learning and well-being—and to reshape the conditions under which scholars work to generate meaningful change,” said Na’ilah Nasir, president of the Spencer Foundation.
