Institutional Challenge Grant
Puerto Rico’s public school system was facing a daunting process of reconstruction even before the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2017, the devastating force of Hurricane María destabilized the entirety of the island’s service infrastructure, public education included. Puerto Rico’s public school system had been historically underperforming relative to its peers in the mainland US and, […]
The William T. Grant Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, and the Bezos Family Foundation are delighted to announce the winners of the 2023 Institutional Challenge Grant competition. The Institutional Challenge Grant encourages university-based research institutes, schools, and centers to grow existing research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality […]
In this webinar, William T. Grant Foundation Senior Program Officer Jenny Irons and President Adam Gamoran discuss the background and goals of the Institutional Challenge Grant program and provide an overview of eligibility details, required materials, and review criteria. Jenny and Adam also field questions from attendees and share practical advice on how to prepare […]
This year’s proposals include partnerships that will examine programs, policies, or practices that seek to reduce racial and economic disparities in K-12 educational outcomes; improve college enrollment, attendance, and completion among youth of color and youth from low-income families; divert youth from the juvenile justice system; and advance economic mobility for youth from low-income families and youth who are disconnected from education and employment.
One of the namesake challenges of the Institutional Challenge Grant is creating structural changes within research institutions in ways that value research-practice partnerships. In other words, we ask that applicants “propose a feasible strategy for institutional change that addresses observed structural, motivational, and financial barriers that inhibit research-practice partnerships at their institution.” While we do […]
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.
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.
True equity-oriented research must upend traditional power dynamics where university researchers are viewed as apex knowledge producers. Democratizing the knowledge production process to recognize the valued and essential contributions of both the researcher and community partners is essential for creating equitable research collaborations.
We are very pleased to announce the finalists for the 2022 Institutional Challenge Grant competition. The Institutional Challenge Grant encourages research institutions to build long-term research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. To do so, research institutions will need to shift their policies and practices to […]
Community-engaged research is not the norm for social scientists. When it comes to faculty career advancement criteria, research institutions typically value studies that advance the field and generate publications more than collaborative knowledge-building that advances the public good. But research designed to address real-time policy and practice problems can be as methodologically rigorous as any […]
“We had to ask ourselves: How do we respond to complexity that was always there but is now heightened? What knowledge is relevant in practice, and how do we produce that knowledge for use in the practice world?”
How We Embraced the Challenge of Institutional Change to Pave the Way for Community-Engaged Research
At UC-Berkeley, where I trained in clinical-community psychology and have served as a professor for almost two decades, our recent strategic plan framed our public mission as: …a commitment to egalitarian and democratic values; to research and scholarly work that serves our community, our state, our nation, and the world; to providing access for students […]
The Institutional Challenge Grant encourages university-based research institutes, schools, and centers to build sustained research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. To do so, research institutions will need to shift their policies and practices to value collaborative research. They will also need to build the capacity […]
The newest grants, amounting to nearly $2,000,000, are being awarded to Johns Hopkins University, Northeastern University, and the University of California Santa Cruz. These institutions will work in partnership with local nonprofits or public agencies to address challenges such as youth suicide, youth employment, and educational inequality.
The William T. Grant Foundation is very pleased to announce the finalists for its 2021 Institutional Challenge Grant competition. Launched in 2017, the Institutional Challenge Grant encourages research institutions to build long-term research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. To do so, research institutions will need […]