The Pew Charitable Trusts’ evidence project catalyzes collective action among philanthropies, public funding agencies, and a diverse array of leaders in government, academia, and civil society that are needed to close the gap between research and real-world impact. The project’s platforms convene these diverse groups to reimagine how research can contribute to addressing longstanding societal challenges ranging from climate change to health disparities to economic inequity and beyond.
The evidence project focuses on:
Harnessing the power of funders. The evidence project facilitates the Transforming Evidence Funders Network (TEFN), which is a collective of over 80 philanthropic and public funding organizations from around the world. TEFN participants are interested and invested in solutions that cut across issue areas and are responsive to the needs of the people closest to the societal problems being addressed. TEFN participants draw on the network's wealth of knowledge to reshape their strategies, improve their practices, and identify innovative approaches.
Cultivating innovation. The evidence project facilitates the Transforming Evidence Network (TEN), which regularly convenes innovators whose leading-edge strategies enable research to support solutions in policy, practice, and community settings. TEN’s flagship biennial conference helps identify urgent challenges, match creative approaches to needed resources, and coordinate key actors to propel impactful initiatives.
Enabling strategic partnerships to catalyze sweeping change. The evidence project convenes diverse organizations to drive change that could not be achieved by any one institution alone. For example, the evidence project is helping to connect initiatives across disciplines, issue areas, and national borders. These efforts aim to transform the culture of research in ways that support the multidisciplinary, community-engaged, and policy-relevant research and innovation—alongside discovery and basic science—that is needed to hasten progress on societal challenges.
The Pew Charitable Trusts, Pan-African Collective for Evidence, and African Center for Equitable Development will co-host the 2024 Transforming Evidence Network (TEN) Conference, which takes place Nov. 19-21 in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Transforming Evidence Funders Network—a collection of more than 80 philanthropies and public funding agencies that convene to catalyze collection action around work at the nexus of research, policy, practice, and community—has announced that it’s facilitating a peer learning and exchange program for 15 funding organizations that have committed to both change a funding practice or process and assess the outcomes of that change.
University leaders are coming together, alongside counterparts from the funding community, to strengthen the contributions of the research ecosystem for the public good. The recently created Presidents and Chancellors Council on Public Impact Research, which meets for the first time this June, will partner with key stakeholders to develop and disseminate a roadmap for ensuring that such work reflects a new paradigm for research initiatives.
