Foundation / Corporation
Spencer Foundation
05/22/19 2:00 PM Central Time
Grants to USA, Canada, and International individual investigators for high-quality, innovative research to improve educational practice. Funding is intended for research projects that span the life course from early childhood to adult learning, as well as those that focus on contexts outside of school.
In this program, the Spencer Foundation envisions a large-minded conception of educational practice that encompasses formal and informal learning as well as the institutional, policy, and normative frameworks that influence and are influenced by learning and developmental processes. Moreover, the Foundation recognizes learning occurs across settings—from the classroom to the workplace and even onto the playing field—any of which may, in the right circumstance, provide the basis for rewarding study.
Scholars from all disciplines can submit proposals across a range of educational research topics. The Foundation anticipates that proposals will span a wide range of topics and disciplines that innovatively investigate questions central to education, including for example education, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, history, law, or neuroscience, amongst others. Moreover, the Foundation expects and welcomes methodological diversity in answering pressing questions. Thus, the Foundation is open to projects that utilize a wide array of research methods including quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, ethnographies, design-based research, participatory methods, archival research, to name a few.
The Foundation is open to projects that might incorporate data from multiple and varied sources, span a sufficient length of time as to achieve a depth of understanding, or work closely with practitioners or community members over the life of the project. Moreover, the Foundation welcomes proposals submitted by multidisciplinary and multigenerational teams who are positioned to both contribute to the project as well as contribute to the teaching and learning of fellow team members. Finally, projects funded under this program thoughtfully consider the trajectories of their project findings, implications and potential impacts, including how the knowledge may be shared and utilized across the field, in practice, in policy making, or with the broader public.
GrantWatch ID#: 158435
Up to 5
Up to $1,000,000
Projects range in duration from one to five years. If you believe your project may require more time, please email the Foundation to discuss any possible exceptions.
- Principal Investigators (PIs) and Co-PIs applying for a Lyle Spencer Research Award must have an earned doctorate in an academic discipline or professional field, or appropriate experience in an education research-related profession.
- The PI must be affiliated with a college, university, school district, non-profit research facility, or non-profit cultural institution that is willing to serve as the administering organization if the grant is awarded. The Spencer Foundation does not award grants directly to individuals.
- Proposals are accepted from the U.S. and internationally, however all proposals must be submitted in English and budgets must be proposed in U.S. Dollars.
Restrictions
- Lyle Spencer Research Award budgets should be between $525,000 and $1,000,000, including up to 15% indirect cost charges
- PIs and Co-PIs may only hold one active research grant from the Spencer Foundation at a time. Simultaneous submissions to the Foundation from PIs and Co-PIs are discouraged due to this policy. (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 and have different research teams.)
Given the Foundation’s focus on research, there are some types of projects that typically do not receive funding. These include: Requests for time to write a book in which the bulk of the research has been completed; curriculum development projects in which conducting research is not the primary aim; and evaluation projects in which the primary goal is to determine whether or not a given program achieved its desired outcomes, rather than to contribute to understanding broader theoretical or empirical questions, such as the mechanisms and conditions that may have enabled (or hindered) the program’s success.
The initial step in the Lyle Spencer Research Awards program is to submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) following the guidelines. Letters of Intent must be submitted through an online application form and are due by 2:00pm central time, May 22, 2019. This review process takes approximately 3-4 months with decisions being sent in late August 2019.
Those invited to continue in the application process will be emailed an invitation along with guidelines on how to submit their full proposal. Full proposal submissions will be due in October 2019 and the review process will take approximately 9 months. Final funding decisions can be expected by July 2020.
Before starting your grant application, please review the funding source's website listed below for updates/changes/addendums/conferences/LOIs.
Click here to apply online: https://spencer.smartsimple.us/s_Login.jsp
If after reviewing the Program Statement you have a question about whether or not your project fits within the program, please email a brief description to lyles@spencer.org.
Program Contact:
Annie Brinkman
abrinkman@spencer.org
The Spencer Foundation
625 N Michigan Ave, Suite 1600
Chicago, IL 60611
312-337-7000
Contact form: https://www.spencer.org/contact
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