Small Research Grants on Education Program

The Small Research Grants on Education Program, offered by the Spencer Foundation, supports high-quality education research that aims to improve educational practice, policy, and understanding. This grant is designed to fund small-scale studies with budgets up to $50,000, for research projects ranging from one to five years in length. The program is offered twice annually, giving researchers multiple opportunities to apply for funding. Unique among grant opportunities, this program is explicitly field-initiated, which means proposals are not confined to specific research topics, methodologies, or locations. Instead, it encourages applicants to pursue their own intellectually ambitious and technically sound questions within the broad field of education. The program welcomes diversity in terms of disciplines and methods, as well as the backgrounds of the researchers themselves, and supports domestic and international applicants. Projects that take place in various settings—such as classrooms, workplaces, communities, or athletic environments—are eligible as long as they contribute to the field of education. Eligible applicants include scholars who hold a doctoral degree and are affiliated with a non-profit or public/governmental organization capable of administering the grant. Individuals are not eligible to apply independently. While graduate students may contribute to the research team, they cannot serve as Principal Investigators (PI) or Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PI). The application must be submitted in English and budgeted in U.S. dollars. The budget must not exceed $50,000 and cannot include indirect costs. However, PIs or Co-PIs with a teaching load of six or more courses per academic year may request up to $10,000 in supplemental funds for a course release, increasing the total budget cap to $60,000 if approved. Applicants are required to submit a comprehensive online application via the Spencer Foundation’s portal. The application consists of several mandatory elements including a proposal summary, detailed budget and justification, subcontract details if applicable, proposal narrative, project timeline, team biosketches, and acknowledgment of the Spencer Foundation’s AI use policy. The proposal narrative must articulate the central research questions, theoretical frameworks, significance, and methodology, and is limited to 1,800 words. The budget justification should explain each cost line item, including personnel, benefits, travel, equipment, project-related expenses, and subcontract costs if any. Applications for this cycle will open on January 26, 2026, and are due by April 15, 2026, at 12:00 p.m. Central Time. Notification of awards typically follows several months after the deadline. Funded projects are expected to begin no sooner than eight months from the date of submission, and the performance period cannot exceed five years. Researchers must adhere to restrictions regarding simultaneous submissions and active grants; a PI or Co-PI may only hold one active research grant from the Spencer Foundation and may only submit one proposal at a time across its core research programs. For additional guidance, applicants are encouraged to review the full Request for Proposals, FAQs, and appendices available on the Spencer Foundation’s SmartSimple online portal. Specific inquiries can be directed to the program’s main contact email: [email protected].