Research-Practice Partnerships: Collaborative Research for Educational Change

Overview

The Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) Grants Program is intended to support education research projects that engage in collaborative and participatory partnerships with project budgets up to $400,000 and durations of up to three years. We accept preproposals once a year in this program.

We view partnerships as an important approach to knowledge generation and the improvement of education, broadly construed. Over the long term, we anticipate that research conducted by RPPs will result in new insights into the processes, practices, and policies that improve education for learners, educators, families, communities, and institutions where learning and teaching happen (e.g., schools, universities, community centers, parks, museums, other workplaces).

Details about the program and application process can be found below.

The Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) Grants Program is intended to support education research projects that engage in collaborative and participatory partnerships with project budgets of up to $400,000 and durations of up to three years. We accept preproposals once a year in this program.

We view partnerships as an important approach to knowledge generation and the improvement of education, broadly construed. Rigorous partnership work is intentionally organized to engage diverse forms of expertise and perspectives, across practitioners, scholars, policymakers, and organizations, as well as disciplines and methods, in knowledge generation around pressing problems of practice and/or policy. Further, RPPs can facilitate the long-term accumulation of knowledge in new ways as researchers and practitioners work together to ask practitioner- and policy-relevant questions on key topics in specific settings over time. Many key problems of practice and policy are historically saturated and require multiple perspectives and long-term engagement if sustainable and systemic change is to occur. Over the long term, we anticipate that research conducted by RPPs will result in new insights into the processes, practices, routines, and policies that improve education for learners, educators, families, communities, and institutions where learning and teaching happen (e.g., schools, universities, community centers, parks, museums, other workplaces).

This grant program is open to existing partnerships between researchers and a broad array of practitioners and policymakers. For example, practice and/or policy partners might work in school districts, county offices of education, state educational organizations, universities, community-based organizations, and other social sectors that significantly impact learners’ lives. As such, we define practitioners broadly; they might be policymakers, out-of-school-time providers and other informal educators, K-12 teachers and leaders, or families and other community members. We are open to applications from design-based research teams, networked improvement communities, place-based research alliances, and a wealth of other partnership arrangements.

We expect the partners in the RPPs we fund to have engaged in fruitful long-term collaborations. How this history is evidenced can vary. For example, teams might have a record of accomplishment as demonstrated by in-process or completed research studies, solutions-in-progress, established trusting relationships, or data-sharing agreements, amongst other possibilities. This grant program is specifically intended to build the capacity of partnerships to make educational change. Effective governance is a key aspect of successful partnerships, and as such, all proposals should specify their governance structures and how the work is jointly developed, as well as how power is shared, across all partners. As noted, while this grant program is open to all partnership configurations across a range of learning contexts, in addition to PreK-12 school systems, we especially encourage applications from partnerships that include scholars and institutions of higher education, policymakers, rural geographic locations, and settings in locations outside of the United States, as well as partnerships that deeply engage community-based organizations and families.

Importantly, we expect that partnerships will foreground issues connected to inequality in education and articulate how their project aims to disrupt the reproduction and deepening of inequities.

Activities that May be Funded

• Research Activities
• Research Infrastructure
• Outreach, Communications, and Relationship Building
• Capacity Development

Proposals to the Research-Practice Partnership program must be for research and other activities aimed to support collaborative partnerships between academic researcher(s) and a broad array of practitioner(s) of education.

PIs and Co-PIs may only hold one active research grant from the Spencer Foundation at a time. (This restriction does not apply to the administering organization; organizations may submit as many proposals as they like as long as they are for different projects with different project teams.)

PIs and Co-PIs may not submit more than one research proposal to the Spencer Foundation at a time. This restriction applies to the Small Grants Program, Large Grants Program, Racial Equity Research Grants Program, and this Research-Practice Partnership Grants Program. If the PI or any of the Co-PIs currently have a research proposal under consideration in any of these programs, they are required to wait until a final decision has been made on the pending proposal before they can submit a new proposal.

Note that an exception to both of these restrictions is the Spencer Vision Grants program. PIs and Co-PIs may apply for a Vision Grant if they have another active research grant from the Spencer Foundation or if they have another Spencer grant proposal under review. However, the projects proposed in a Vision Grant proposal and in another Spencer grant program proposal must be distinct.

Research-Practice Partnership budget totals are limited to $400,000 including up to 15% indirect cost charges.

The proposed duration of the grant may not be longer than 3 years.

How to Apply: The application process begins with the submission of a preproposal. After the preproposal review, Spencer will notify applicants who are invited to submit a full proposal and will provide further instructions at that time.

Deadlines: Applications Open: May 12, 2026

Pre-Proposal Deadline: July 10, 2026, 12:00 PM Noon (Central/Chicago Time)

Full Proposal (By Invitation) Deadline: October 28, 2026, 12:00 PM Noon (Central/Chicago Time)