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Commissioned by the Transforming Evidence Funders Network and facilitated by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a new report describes the growing momentum behind university reforms that encourage faculty to conduct collaborative research with community partners and decision-makers outside the university…
University Reforms that Reward Engaged Research: What Does Change Look Like?
In October, the Dual Enrollment Research Collaborative, an initiative spearheaded by the Joyce Foundation and the Collaborative for Higher Education Research and Policy at the University of Utah, released a …
President’s Comment: Dual Enrollment Policy and Practice as a Potential Strategy for Reducing Inequality in Youth Outcomes
Research has a critical role to play in challenging damaging narratives and establishing different perspectives. In supporting the project “Public Learning in a Multiracial Democracy,” we hope to help change the environment for antiracist education in ways that foster greater …
President’s Comment: Advancing Research on Racial Equity in a Time of Polarization
Since 2015, the William T. Grant Foundation has funded research on programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality in youth outcomes. We have supported a diverse pool of highly accomplished researchers, …
President’s Comment: Effective Programs are Not Enough, We Need Structural Change to Reduce Inequality
Many of us may have hoped that the change in administration in Washington, DC, would have lessened the pervasive climate of hostility and xenophobia that we have experienced in the …
President’s Comment: Combatting Anti-Asian Violence By Confronting the Deep Roots of Racism
In early September, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget issued a directive that barred federal agencies from providing staff training on concepts including critical race theory and White privilege. This directive, which characterized such training as “un-American propaganda” …
President’s Comment: Anti-Racist Education is Essential for Research Universities
By institutionalizing collaborative research and building sustained knowledge-building partnerships with local service providers, universities can lead the way towards a more prosperous and equitable future.
President’s Comment: It’s Time for Universities to Fulfill their Promise as Engines of Social Change
As we make our way through this terrible time, with the health and economic devastation of the pandemic disproportionately manifested in communities of color compounded by searing examples of racial injustice, we reflect on what more we, as a funder …
President’s Comment: Research Can Help us Chart the Path to Racial Justice
While the world grapples with the crisis of COVID-19, each of us faces challenges in our own lives. As a funder, we want to alleviate one sense of pressure you may feel: We intend to be as flexible and understanding …
President’s Comment: A Message to Our Grantees
ICYMI: All of this @nytimes article about science denial is true — but it’s not the whole story. The whole story is worse in some ways, better than others. What accounts for when science is accepted and when it’s …
President’s Comment: Science Denial is Not the Whole Story, a Treatise in 14 Tweets
How can researchers find the motivation to continue to produce knowledge worth considering? And how can we, as supporters of research, best sustain our mission to support them?
President’s Comment: Producing Credible Knowledge in an Incredible Era
Throughout our 82-year history, the William T. Grant Foundation has had many able leaders, starting, of course, with William T. Grant himself. Last month, we lost one of our most prominent leaders, with the passing of former Foundation president Robert …
President’s Comment: The Passing of a Leader
The Commission on Evidence-based Policymaking is an opportunity that doesn’t come every year, and may not come again. Let’s make the most of it.
President’s Comment: The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
I recently spoke to the American Educational Research Association about the Foundation’s focus on building, testing, and improving understanding of programs, policies, and practices to reduce inequality in youth …
President’s Comment: The Challenge of Inequality and the Future of Education Research
This year, the American Educational Research Association (AREA) will celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary at its annual meeting in Washington, DC on April 8-12, 2016. Throughout its history, AERA has provided a forum for researchers to share substantive findings and methodological advances …
President’s Comment: AERA Turns 100
Whether compared to other countries or to our own history, it is clear that inequality in the United States today is excessive and harmful to our economy and society. Yet the evidence is also clear that social policy can reduce …
President’s Comment: To Reduce Inequality, We Need More Answers
Education is a gateway for opportunity—a pathway to progress through which young people acquire the skills, knowledge, and experiences to obtain good jobs and prosperous futures. Yet in the U.S., education is highly unequal. On average, students from …
The Future of Educational Inequality: What Went Wrong and How Can We Fix It?
Inequality is a fundamental challenge facing our nation. At the William T. Grant Foundation, we believe that responses to inequality can mitigate its effects, and, moreover, that there is a pressing need for new research to identify effective responses. To …
President’s Comment: Inequality Matters—And There is More We Can Do
From the mayor of New York to President Obama and Pope Francis, hardly a day goes by without a prominent leader decrying the degree of inequality in the United States and worldwide. Our view at the Foundation is that inequality …
President’s Comment: Inequality Is the Problem—What’s Our Response?
When William T. Grant established this Foundation in 1936, he wanted, in his words, to support research that would yield new insights about why some people led happy and successful lives and others did not. Armed with this evidence, he reasoned, …
President’s Comment: Our Work

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