Although funders are generally acknowledged as important actors in the evidence ecosystem, there has been insufficient analysis of the how and why behind funders’ decisions. This article examines the decision-making of three funders in their support of relational approaches to improve the usefulness and use of research evidence. They compare their work across the disparate

The new issue of The Future of Children “is centered on major challenges or opportunities involving RPPs, such as creating a research or funding agenda, developing tools, taking innovation to scale, navigating conflicting timelines, finding a balance between rigor and feasibility, and building capacity.”

Seeking to learn more what effective inter-agency collaboration looks like in practice, the American Youth Policy Forum, the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships, and Results for America recently assembled a contingent of state education agency staff, researchers, and intermediaries to embed with the Massachusetts Department of Secondary and Elementary Education for a day-long “learning journey.” This post chronicles lessons gleaned from that day, including best practices, recommendations, and process details drawn from real-life experiences.

This paper makes the case for systematically evaluating the impact of boundary-spanning activities, which can facilitate knowledge exchange and connect science and policy.

Many research-practice partnerships (RPP) begin when two initially unaffiliated partner organizations decide to pursue collaborative work. Having formed a partnership between our respective offices within a federal agency, our experience is a bit different.

Ruth Lopez Turley's data showed that full-day pre-K had a more positive impact on school readiness, part of the work at the Houston Education Research Consortium.

At the National Center for Research in Policy & Practice, Caitlin Farrell and colleagues have studied research-practice partnerships and thought about the different questions that emerge when trying to understand the impact of RPPs. Here she and the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships' Paula Arce-Trigatti discuss insights from that work.

When well executed, research-practice partnerships can be powerful mechanisms for producing relevant and useful knowledge and facilitating its integration into policy and practice to improve youth outcomes. But without taking intentional steps to avoid common hurdles, it’s likely that many partnerships will fail to fulfill this potential. In this paper, three state education agency leaders experienced in navigating the challenging world of research-practice partnerships, offer examples of potential obstacles facing RPPs and provide practical strategies for overcoming them.

A growing movement around the world is uniting researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in collaborative efforts to develop and use research to tackle the most pressing social and environmental problems of our day. What’s different about these efforts is that the research studies are a product of the collaborations, not the other way around.