Deadline: 15-Sep-25
The Institutional Challenge Grant supports university-based research institutes, schools, and centers in building sustained research-practice partnerships with public agencies or nonprofit organizations in order to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
Goals
The Institutional Challenge Grant asks grantees to pursue four goals:
Grow an existing institutional partnership with a public agency or nonprofit organization.
The research-practice partnership will have defined objectives, roles, and agreements, and will be built for the long term. In this way, the partnership will be mutually beneficial, enabling the partners to develop and pursue a joint research agenda that is relevant to the public agency or nonprofit organization’s work over an extended period of time.
Pursue a joint research agenda to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
The partnership’s research will aim to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5-25 in the United States. Specifically, the research agenda will seek to inform responses to inequality on the basis of race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origins.
Create institutional change to value research-practice partnerships within research institutions.
The research institution will design a feasible strategy for institutional change that addresses observed structural, motivational, and financial barriers that inhibit research-practice partnerships at the institution. By establishing structural supports and incentives that encourage skilled, mid-career researchers to conduct joint work with policymakers and practitioners, the institution will develop an environment for partnerships to thrive.
Enhance the capacity of both partners to collaborate on producing and using research evidence.
Through new experiences that foster deeper understandings of a given policy or practice context and deepen relationships with partners, grantees on the research side will enhance their capacity for participating in effective partnerships. At the same time, the public agency or nonprofit partner will enhance their own capacity to partner with researchers, as well as understand, conduct, and use research through activities such as technical assistance, infrastructure improvements, or staff training.
Funding Information
This year, they will award at least two Institutional Challenge Grants. Each award will provide $650,000 over three years. This includes:
Up to $60,000 for up to 9 months of joint planning activities (e.g., refining protocols for partnering, selecting fellows, finalizing partnership and data sharing agreements, etc.).
Funding for two years of a full-time equivalent mid-career fellowship. In addition, universities are required to fund one additional year of a full-time equivalent fellowship.
Eligibility Criteria
Eligible research institutions
The Foundation makes grants only to tax-exempt organizations. They do not make grants to individuals.
Eligible organizations include university-based research institutes, schools, or centers. Institutions that sit outside of the academy, such as research organizations and think tanks, are not eligible.
They encourage proposals from organizations that are under-represented among grantee institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Alaska Native Serving Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.
Eligible principal investigators
Eligible principal investigators are leaders at eligible research institutions. They have visibility, influence on institutional policies and practices, and access to the resources needed to optimize and implement the award. They 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, prevention of child abuse and neglect, foster care, mental health, immigration, or workforce development and have the resources needed to implement and optimize the award.
For more information, visit William T. Grant Foundation.
