Deadline: 10-Sep-20
William T. Grant Foundation is seeking applications for its Institutional Challenge Grant to encourage 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.
Applications are welcome from partnerships in youth-serving areas such as education, justice, child welfare, mental health, immigration, and workforce development. They especially encourage proposals from teams with African American, Latinx, Native American, and Asian American members in leadership roles. The partnership leadership team includes the principal investigator from the research institution and the lead from the public agency or nonprofit organization.
Goals
The award supports research institutions to build sustained research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. Research institutions will need to address four important goals:
- Build a sustained institutional partnership with a public agency or nonprofit organization that serves young people ages 5-25 in the United States.
- Pursue a joint research agenda to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
- Create institutional change within the research institution to value the partnership and its work.
- Develop the capacity of the partners to collaborate on producing and using research evidence.
Award Information
The award will provide $650,000 over three years. This includes:
- Up to $50,000 for up to 9 months of joint planning activities (e.g., refining protocols for partnering, selecting fellows, finalizing partnership and data sharing agreements, etc.).
- Fellowship support for the equivalent of one full-time or two half-time mid-career fellows per year for two years. In addition, universities are required to commit to a 1-for-2 match on the mid-career fellows: the grant pays for two full-time equivalent (FTE) fellows, and universities are required to fund one additional FTE fellow. All fellows must be mid-career.
- Up to three years of support for the partnership to conduct and use research to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
- Resources to advance the proposed institutional shifts and capacities of both partners.
- Indirect cost allowance of up to 15 percent of total direct costs.
Eligibility Criteria
- Major research grants
- Eligible research institutions The award will be made to an organization, not to an individual. Organizations can include university-based research institutes, schools, or centers. Grants are limited without exception to tax-exempt organizations. Please note that research organizations, think tanks, and other institutions that sit outside of the academy are no longer eligible to apply.
- Eligible principal investigators
- The principal investigator should be a leader at the research institution. S/he should have visibility, influence on institutional policies and practices, and access to the resources needed to optimize and implement the award. S/he should also possess the skills needed to cultivate trusting relationships with leaders from the partner public agency or nonprofit organization and to ensure the conduct of high-quality research.
- Eligible public agencies or nonprofit organizations
- Eligible public agencies include state or local agencies and their departments and divisions. Nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations are eligible if they are open to the general public and provide or coordinate services for youth ages 5 to 25 in the United States. Eligible agencies and organizations engage in work relevant to youth in the areas of education, justice, child welfare, mental health, immigration, or workforce development and have the resources needed to implement and optimize the award.
- Eligible leaders from the public agency or nonprofit organization
- Leaders from the public agency or nonprofit organization should have the authority and influence required to successfully institutionalize the partnership and the use of research evidence in the agency or organization’s work.
- Eligible partnerships
- Research-practice partnerships are defined as long-term, mutually beneficial collaborations that promote the production and use of rigorous and relevant research evidence. These partnerships take a long view and should extend beyond the life of any one grant, project, or leader. While the competition is open to partnerships at different stages of maturity, applicants will need to convince reviewers that the grant adds significant value to what already exists. We anticipate that it will be difficult for a well-established partnership with strong institutional support to make a convincing case that the award adds value. For newer partnerships, reviewers will seek promising initial evidence that the partners have successfully worked together in the past and have the potential to sustain a long-term collaboration.
- Eligible fellows
- All fellows must be mid-career. For researchers, we define mid-career as having received the terminal degree within 8 to 20 years of the date that the application is submitted. (This should be calculated by adding 8 and 20 years to the date the doctoral degree was conferred. For medicine, an institution should use the date from the completion of the first residency.) The research fellow does not need to be an employee of the research institution and can be recruited from another institution. The research fellow will be called on to facilitate the research and support the use of research evidence. Applicants may appoint one mid-career fellow from the public agency or nonprofit organization. (All other fellows must be researchers). This should be a mid-career professional at the agency or organization who will be called on to facilitate the use of research. A mid-career professional has 8 to 20 years of cumulative experience in his/her current role.
For more information, visit http://wtgrantfoundation.org/grants/institutional-challenge-grant