Rice forms National Education Research-Practice Partnerships Network

New Kinder Institute program will help researchers, school districts partner in new ways to benefit students

Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research has formed the National Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NERPP) Network, a first-of-its-kind national organization for partnerships between school systems and research institutions. The announcement was made at Rice during the second annual gathering of participants in these partnerships Aug. 5-7.

The NERPP Network will develop and support partnerships between school districts and research institutions with the goal of improving the connection between research and policy/practice.

The NERPP Network will develop and support partnerships between school districts and research institutions with the goal of improving the connection between research and policy/practice. The network includes partnerships in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, Mo., in addition to Houston. Rice’s Houston Education Research Consortium, founded in 2011 as part of the Kinder Institute, is a participant in the network.

“The time was right to develop a national network to facilitate the work researchers and district leaders are doing so we can all learn from one another and improve the connection between research and policy,” said Ruth López Turley, founder of the NERPP Network, director of the Houston Education Research Consortium, associate director of the Kinder Institute and a professor of sociology at Rice.

The NERPP Network objectives include developing and sharing best partnership practices; synthesizing findings and building knowledge to make use of new research that studies the relationship between research and policy for district/state improvement; producing comparative research; and advancing policies and system reforms.

Turley said that these goals might be difficult to achieve in isolation, but if coordinated through a national network, they are much more likely to successfully connect research and practice and result in better and more relevant research as well as better-informed decisions.

In the next year, the NERPP Network will hire a national coordinator and program manager to oversee day-to-day business and support existing partnerships as well as help to develop new partnerships.

The NERPP Network is supported by grants from the William T. Grant Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Wallace Foundation and the Annie E. Case Foundation.

“I am especially grateful for the extensive support we have received from these foundations, not just financial support but valuable feedback and important connections with the individuals and organizations that will make this network a useful tool for connecting research and policy and ultimately improving student outcomes,” Turley said.