Funder: Spencer Foundation
Due Dates (Anticipated): November 2027 (Preproposal) | December 2027 (Invited full proposal)
Funding Amounts: Up to $400,000, including indirect costs, for up to three years
Summary: Supports collaborative education research through established research-practice partnerships addressing inequity and improving educational practice and policy.
Key Information: Applicants need an existing partnership with a history of productive collaboration, not a newly formed team.
Description
The Spencer Foundation’s Research-Practice Partnership Grants Program supports education research developed jointly by researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and communities. It aims to build partnerships’ capacity to make educational change while generating knowledge useful beyond their immediate settings. Partnerships must foreground educational inequality and explain how their work will disrupt the reproduction and deepening of inequities.
Research must be central, whether launching new studies or expanding existing work. Projects may also strengthen research infrastructure, communication and dissemination, relationships, and partners’ capacity to use evidence. The program welcomes diverse methods and learning contexts, including schools, universities, community centers, parks, museums, and workplaces. Shared governance, jointly developed work, and recognition of diverse expertise are central to the approach.
