Institutional Challenge Grant Program
The William T. Grant Foundation’s Institutional Challenge Grant program 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.
A brief description of the Institutional Challenge Grant program
Research-practice partnerships bring together experts from the research and practice communities to develop a joint research agenda to address pressing questions. However, despite its considerable benefits, collaborative work of this type is not always valued by universities and, as a result, policies and practices within universities can inadvertently create disincentives for faculty members to participate in research-practice partnerships.
In response to these obstacles, the William T. Grant Foundation established the Institutional Challenge Grant program, encouraging research institutions to remove barriers that inhibit collaborative work. In addition to supporting an existing institutional partnership to pursue a joint research agenda, these grants enable changes in institutional policy and practice to value research-practice partnerships and enhance the capacity of researchers and practitioners to together produce and use high-quality rigorous research results.
The program challenges research institutions to remove barriers to partnerships’ success. This includes the careful scrutiny and redesign of internal policies, practices, or incentives that limit the longevity of partnerships or discourage exceptional researchers from taking part. In turn, when partnerships are more productive, respected, and commonplace, communities of research, policy, and practice will be better aligned to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
The Institutional Challenge Grant asks grantees to pursue four goals:
- Grow an existing institutional partnership with a public agency or nonprofit organization.
- Pursue a joint research agenda to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.
- Create institutional change to value research-practice partnerships within research institutions.
- Enhance the capacity of both partners to collaborate on producing and using research evidence.
This strategic action can encourage cross-sectoral co-leadership & shared decision-making:
While these grants are intended specifically to enable research-practice partnerships, the institutional changes they create will more broadly enable researchers to participate in HIBAR projects, as well as other forms of community-engaged research. At the end of a 5-year grant, it is expected that:
- The research institution has established a set of strategies that facilitate sustained research collaborations with public agencies or private nonprofit organizations;
- The public agency or private nonprofit organization has increased its capacity to use research evidence;
- Participating researchers have improved partnership skills; and
- The research generated has been used in decision making and is likely to lead to improved outcomes for youth.
This strategic action directly contributes to various common institutional priorities, including:
HIBAR projects enable university-based researchers and non-academic researchers and practitioners to work together on projects that strengthening commitment to research excellence and also greatly accelerate progress toward solving society’s critical problems, since co-produced research outcomes are more likely to be translated to benefit society in the long term.
Community Engagement
HIBAR projects involve deep partnerships with individuals in external organizations, often in locally-based industries, governments, non-profits, and communities. This inclusion helps build long-lasting relationships with people and organizations holding diverse knowledge and perspectives, and increases future community-engaged activities and solutions.
Talent Development
HIBAR projects offer experiential opportunities that lead to many different career paths. This creates a positive feedback loop: as more HIBAR-experienced researchers enter the workforce, they can help co-create and co-lead more university HIBAR collaborations that in turn create new HIBAR research opportunities for another generation of faculty and students.
Learn more about the Institutional Challenge Grant program:
