Bridging the Gap convened a summit of 13 university provosts and representatives from foundations and the policy world on June 10, 2016. The objective of the summit was to identify areas where universities can better support public and policy engagement. This summary report outlines the discussion which examined “The University as a Driver of Impact” and “University Culture and Obstacles to Promoting Public and Policy Engagement” and identified “Next Steps”. Read Report Here

On January 23, 2017, Bridging the Gap convened leaders from prominent foundations and universities to identify and advance avenues of cooperation across academic disciplines and policy areas. This workshop focused on how the missions of universities and foundations provide a strong basis for synergies and partnerships. In particular, Bridging the Gap identified a core area of common interest: engaged scholars are well-positioned to harness their issue area and methodological expertise across a wide range of policy areas to co-create research projects with significant public policy and/or social impact – projects that align with the priority missions of foundations. In doing so, university-based scholars continue to serve the core objectives of the academy to create and disseminate knowledge for the betterment of society while educating future generations. Read the report.

In a follow-up article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Why Universities and Foundations Should Get Together Sooner, James Goldgeier, Bruce Jentleson, Jessica Trisko Darden and Steven Weber argue for a co-creative approach to collaboration between university-based researchers and foundations. In a co-creative process, researchers and funders are able to cooperate at much earlier stages in the research process, working together to identify emerging problems that are of significance to both. Foundations are able to fund projects, and researchers are able to deliver their findings on the basis of a jointly identified problem of significant societal value.

BTG Senior Director Jordan Tama is co-principal investigator of a National Science Foundation grant to American University that is designed to strengthen university capacity and incentives for connecting research to communities beyond academia. BTG Senior Director Naazneen Barma is principal investigator of a sub-award of this NSF grant to the University of Denver that will support work by BTG to enhance training of scholars in public and policy engagement.

Michael Desch, James Goldgeier, Ana Petrova, and Kimberly Peh conducted a survey of international affairs schools deans and of political science department chairs to compare their attitudes toward policy-relevant teaching and research. The bottom line: deans want their faculty to do the same type of academic scholarship as the political science department chairs seek, and in addition, they want those same faculty to engage in policy-relevant activities, writing, and speaking. In other words, policy schools deans want it all. Read Report Here.

BTG Senior Advisor, Bruce Jentleson, served on Duke University’s Tenure Standards committee. Find Report Here

Bruce Jentleson has served as strategic consultant to the Pew Charitable Trusts-led Transforming Evidence Funders Group (TEFN) and co-authored White Paper: Scan of Promising Efforts to Broaden Faculty Rewards Systems to Support Societally Impactful Scholarship (October 2023).