The Spencer Foundation, established in 1971, is a prominent national foundation solely dedicated to funding education research. Its mission is to invest in rigorous, impactful research that enhances educational practice and promotes equity. The Foundation emphasizes the importance of education research in building a more just and effective education system and believes that such research should be transformative, accessible, and methodologically diverse. Its core goals include fostering innovative research, supporting quality training for researchers, broadening the scope of scholarly work, and making research findings more usable for both practitioners and the general public. The Spencer Foundation’s initiatives are grounded in the belief that education is key to social transformation and lifelong learning opportunities. The organization actively promotes collaboration across disciplines and encourages projects that incorporate the voices of policymakers, practitioners, and communities. Through its focused funding, the Foundation contributes to building a strong knowledge base to address pressing educational challenges and achieve meaningful systems change. By supporting high-quality research and its dissemination, the Foundation aims to impact policy and practice, especially in ways that promote equity and inclusion across educational systems.

The Vision Grants program by the Spencer Foundation supports the collaborative planning of large-scale, interdisciplinary education research projects aimed at transforming education systems toward greater equity. These grants provide up to $75,000 for a period of 6 to 12 months. Rather than requiring a complete research proposal, the Vision Grant encourages teams to develop innovative ideas, identify key systems for transformation, and explore the methodologies and collaborations needed for impactful change. This program supports forward-thinking, rigorous, and collaborative work, creating space for interdisciplinary teams to deeply engage with issues of educational equity. Grantees are expected to identify their research topic, initial methodological ideas, key systems and levers for change, and the team structure. The goal is to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive and actionable research plan that may later qualify for the Foundation’s Transformative Research Grant of $3.5 million. The program supports proposals that center on real-world challenges in education and actively involve diverse stakeholders including scholars, educators, policymakers, and communities to ensure the research has practical and lasting impact.