The Office of Foundation Relations is pleased to share this open call for funding from the Spencer Foundation.
UCSC Contact: Caroline Rodriguez | caroline@ucsc.edu
Funder: Spencer Foundation
Opportunity: Vision Grants
Intent to Apply Deadline: February 11, 2025, 10:00 a.m. PT
Overview
The Spencer Vision Grants program funds the collaborative planning of innovative, methodologically diverse, interdisciplinary research on education that contributes to transforming education systems for equity. Vision Grants are research planning grants to bring together a team, for 6 to 12 months, to collaboratively develop ambitious, large-scale research projects focused on transforming educational systems toward greater equity. This program takes as core that visionary, interdisciplinary, and collaborative research projects require time, space, and thoughtfulness to incubate and plan.
Vision Grants will provide planning funds for teams to develop proposals for research projects that:
- Are focused on key challenges and opportunities that have the potential for increasing equity in education
- Engage multiple PIs across distinct disciplinary and/or research methods approaches towards the planning of a large-scale, rigorous research study
- Collaborate equitably with practitioners, policymakers, and communities (and other partners)
- Have clear sightlines to transformational change at a systemic level
Award Amount & Terms
Proposed budgets for this program are limited to $75,000 total and may not include indirect cost charges per Spencer’s policy.
Eligibility
- Principal Investigators (PIs) and Co-PIs applying for a Vision Grant must have appropriate experience or an earned doctorate in an academic discipline or terminal degree in a professional field. While graduate students may be part of the research team, they may not be named the PI or Co-PI on the proposal.
- 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 in review.
- Being awarded a Vision Grant is also a prerequisite for applying to Spencer’s Transformative Research Grant program, designed for large-scale research projects that transform education systems for equity.
See here for a list of previous awardees.
Timeline
- February 11, 2025, 10:00 a.m. PT Intent to Apply Deadline
- March 11, 2025, 10:00 a.m. PT Full Proposal Deadline
Special Instructions
Please notify the Office of Foundation Relations if you are interested in applying to this opportunity (fr@ucsc.edu). For support developing your proposal, please contact the Research Development Specialist assigned to your unit or send a request to resdev@ucsc.edu. Within the Division of Arts, please contact Hannah Jasper (hannahjasper@ucsc.edu), and within the Social Sciences, please contact Ashlee Tews (ashleeac@ucsc.edu) to initiate notification and proposal support.
Call Sent: November 25, 2024
The Office of Foundation Relations is a unit of University Advancement. The FR team creates and maintains mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with private organizations, matching grant initiatives with educational and research programs and centers. FR supports faculty and staff to identify and approach these and other private foundations for funding, to assist in strategic positioning of the grant application, and to facilitate funder campus visits. For a list of recent funding opportunities, please visit the FR website. FR Calls for Funding