Blog

The William T. Grant Foundation is delighted to announce the return of Kimberly A. DuMont in the role of Senior Vice President of Program, effective October 1, 2022. Kim was previously employed at the Foundation from 2011-2020 as program officer and senior program officer. She was instrumental in the 2015 reshaping of the Foundation’s initiative […]

Yesterday, The Foundation for Child Development announced that Vivian Tseng would become its new president and chief executive officer. Here at the William T. Grant Foundation, the announcement comes with a mix of great pride at seeing her career advancement, and sorrow at the departure of a long-time leader of inestimable value. Vivian has served […]

Funders shape what research is conducted on which questions. Funders can also support the infrastructure that is vital to engagement between policymakers and researchers. And while the grants funders make are public knowledge and have received attention in the literature, we know far less about how and why funders decide on what to support.

In this webinar, deans from two current Institutional Challenge Grant teams join us to discuss the changes they intend for their respective schools, the concrete steps they are taking to encourage faculty to participate in engaged research, and the challenges they are navigating along the way.

A new agenda for research on child welfare systems calls for bold new studies that meet the needs of the 21st Century child welfare system and improve the lives of our most vulnerable children, youth, and families. While there have been several research agendas for child welfare developed over the last decade, to our knowledge […]

The recent special collection of Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World began with a question: “If research is to make a difference in reducing inequality… how?” Offering new perspectives on ways that the social sciences can drive action and address large-scale social change, a new set of commentaries on the special collection outlines potential […]

We recently analyzed the applications we received over the last two years for research grants on improving the use of research evidence. One of the top three reasons applications were not selected for funding was a focus on the use of data and not research evidence, as defined by the Foundation. We recognize that distinctions […]

With the increase in a variety of secondary data sources related to the use of research evidence and the growth of new methods and measures used in research on the use of research evidence, opportunities abound for those studying URE to advance the field. In response, for the August 2022 Officers’ research grants cycle, we […]

By R. Chris Sheldrick, Tom Mackie, Lauren Supplee, Gracelyn Cruden, Liz Farley-Ripple, Bill Firestone, Brittany Gay, Jonathan Purtle, Alicia Wilson-Ahlstrom, on behalf of the William T. Grant Foundation Special Interest Group on the Quality of the Use of Research Evidence. For many years, the William T. Grant Foundation has funded research on ways to improve […]

It’s one thing to know how research is used in policy and practice—to understand the conditions that enable thoughtful deliberation and sense-making of the evidence and the infrastructure that supports those conditions. It’s another thing altogether to create those conditions and the supporting infrastructure so that research routinely serves the public interest. I recently took […]

The question of how to improve the use of research (URE) in policy and practice can be approached from diverse disciplinary and methodological angles. For many who study research use, attention to the challenge of URE grows naturally from an already established line of research. Other times, first-hand experience with the obstacles that prevent greater […]

Like many, I am finally returning to live conferences after a hiatus of two years. Despite the still-ongoing pandemic, I am excited for the chance, with appropriate COVID protocols, to interact in person, to hear new ideas, and to share with others the latest aims and activities of the William T. Grant Foundation. The largest […]

The William T. Grant Foundation is pleased to announce the newest class of William T. Grant Scholars. Launched in 1982, the Scholars Program supports the professional development of promising researchers in the social, behavioral, and health sciences who have received their terminal degrees within the past seven years. To date, the program has sponsored more […]

These grants leverage the power and networks of universities to reduce inequality in youth outcomes, a persisting challenge that has become even more severe during the COVID-19 pandemic.