The Research Grants on improving the use of research evidence program supports research on strategies focused on improving the use, usefulness, and impact of evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States. program supports research on strategies focused on improving the use, usefulness, and impact of evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States.
Donor Name: William T. Grant Foundation
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 01/07/2026
Size of the Grant: $500,000 to $1 million
Grant Duration: 4 Years
Details:
Research evidence can be a powerful resource for policymakers, agency leaders, organizational managers, and others who make high-stakes decisions that shape youth-serving systems. In addition to informing policy formation and service delivery, evidence from systematic research can deepen decision-makers’ understanding of issues, generate reliable assessment tools, support strategic planning, and guide program improvement. But only if it is used.
Priorities
This year they will prioritize funding applications that:
- investigate and test strategies to improve the use of research evidence to benefit young people concerning politically charged and contested issues, particularly in highly polarized contexts. Prior studies of decision-makers’ use of research evidence during school board deliberations (Asen & Gurke, 2014), in legislative sessions (Bogenschneider, Day, & Parrott, 2019; Yanovitzky & Weber, 2020), and by advocacy coalitions (Scott et al., 2017) provide a strong evidence base for designing and studying strategies.
- propose experimental tests of strategies to improve research use in policy and practice to improve youth outcomes.
Funding Information
- Major research grants:
- $100,000 to $1,000,000 over 2-4 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
- Studies involving secondary data analysis are at the lower end of the range (about $100,000–$300,000).
- Studies that involve new data collection can have larger budgets (typically $300,000-$600,000).
- Generally, only proposals to launch experiments in which settings (e.g., schools, child welfare agencies, justice settings) are randomly assigned to conditions are eligible for funding above $600,000.
- $100,000 to $1,000,000 over 2-4 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
- Officers’ research grants:
- $25,000–$50,000 over 1-2 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
- Studies may be stand-alone projects or may build off larger projects. The budget should be appropriate for the activities proposed.
Uses of Funds
- Studies that build or test strategies to improve the use of existing research in policy or practice.
- Studies that test whether and how strategies that improve the use of research evidence in turn improve decision-making and youth outcomes.
Eligibility Criteria
Eligible Organizations
- The Foundation makes grants only to tax-exempt organizations. They do not make grants to individuals.
- 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 NativeServing Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.
Eligible Principal Investigators
- The Foundation defers to the applying organization’s criteria for who is eligible to act as a Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on a grant. In general, they expect that all investigators will have the experience and skills to carry out the proposed work.
- They strive to support a diverse group of researchers in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and seniority, and they encourage research projects led by Black or African American, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or Asian or Pacific Islander American researchers.
Eligible Studies
- Only studies that 1) align with the stated research interests of this program and 2) relate to the outcomes of young people between the ages of 5 and 25 in the United States are eligible for consideration.
- They do not support non-research activities such as program implementation and operational costs, or make contributions to building funds, fundraising drives, endowment funds, general operating budgets, or scholarships. Applications for ineligible projects are screened out without further review.
For more information, visit William T. Grant Foundation.
