Spencer Foundation Pauses Three Core Grant Competitions for 2027. A 2 Percent Funding Rate Explains Why.

A decade ago, an education researcher who sent a proposal to the Spencer Foundation had roughly a one-in-eleven chance of being funded. Last year the odds were one in fifty.

Those numbers come from the foundation. On October 27, 2026, Spencer President Na'ilah Suad Nasir and Director of Programs Leah Bricker published a letter to the field announcing that "in the first half of 2027, we will pause new competitions for our Research Grants on Education: Small; Research Grants on Education: Large; and Racial Equity Research Grants programs." No new competitions will be held for those three programs between January and June 2027. Spencer expects to announce a redesigned grantmaking approach in June 2027, and the redesigned programs would start making awards in the second half of the year.

The letter explains the decision in one sentence: "With applications increasing dramatically, funding rates have fallen from 9 percent a decade ago to just 2 percent last year." Proposals to Spencer, it says, "more than quadrupled across our programs over the past four years." The foundation increased its grantmaking by 20 percent over the same period, which was not close to enough.

What is paused, and what is not

The first coverage of the announcement made it sound larger than it is. Inside Higher Ed reported on November 3 that Spencer "will temporarily stop issuing new grants during the first half of 2027." Spencer's own FAQ says the reverse: "No. Spencer is not stopping or reducing its grantmaking." The foundation says it will "continue to make grants throughout 2027" and remains "committed to distributing our full approved grantmaking budget." The letter adds: "We are not reducing the amount of funding that we provide to the field for research."

Here is how the programs break down:

Paused, January to June 2027 (no new competitions):

• Research Grants on Education: Small
• Research Grants on Education: Large
• Racial Equity Research Grants

Continuing on existing schedules:

• Transformative Research programs, including Transformative Research Grants and Vision Grants, which the FAQ says "will continue without interruption"
• Dissertation, postdoctoral, and journalism fellowships
• The Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) competition with proposals due October 28, 2026, which "will proceed as planned"
• Any competition already open or in review, which will "proceed according to their announced timelines"

Grants that have already been awarded are not affected.

The distinction matters because the three paused programs are the open-door, investigator-initiated competitions that most education researchers think of as "Spencer." The Small Research Grants program in particular has historically been where early-career faculty, researchers at teaching-focused institutions, and people outside elite networks could win a first independent award without an existing relationship with the foundation. The programs that continue, such as the fellowships, the RPP competition, and the Transformative Research track, are more specialized, have narrower eligibility, or are built around particular career stages and partnership structures.

So the money is not disappearing. For six months, though, the broadest entry point is closed.

The application flood behind the decision

Spencer's numbers belong to a larger pattern. Federal education research support fell sharply after 2025, when the Institute of Education Sciences lost much of its staff and contract portfolio and grant terminations reached education research programs at several agencies. Researchers who had relied on federal grants moved to private funders, and the private funders received far more proposals than they could fund.

In a funding market like this, a 2 percent success rate is the result of a few mid-sized foundations absorbing demand that used to be spread across federal agencies. When proposals quadruple and budgets grow 20 percent, each application's expected value falls by a factor of about three. The letter is direct about what that does to applicants: "continuing to operate programs that require substantial investments of time from thousands of applicants while offering an increasingly small likelihood of funding is not a sustainable or responsible response."

It also names the cost to the foundation's own reviewers: "We recognize that our broad programs ask too much of applicants and reviewers and take too long to get funding into the field."

Spencer is not the first funder to respond to an application surge by closing or narrowing its open doors. Over the past two years, a number of foundations have moved from open calls to invitation-only or letter-of-inquiry-first models, collapsed multiple annual rounds into one, or capped submissions per institution. Spencer's move is notable because it was one of the last major private funders running broad, field-initiated competitions for education research at scale, and because it has published its funding-rate collapse so plainly.

What the June 2027 redesign might look like

Spencer has not said what the refreshed programs will be, and its FAQ says that "as of fall 2026, no decisions about these potential changes have been made." The letter does say the programs "may change," new programs may be created, and decision-making processes may be redesigned "to create new opportunities and increase fund rates."

The FAQ is also candid that the current lineup is not guaranteed to come back. Asked whether some programs might not return, it answers: "Yes," and says the refresh is happening "rather than assuming that every program will return in its current form." When competitions reopen, they "will open on a staggered schedule rather than all at once."

Taken together, those statements point to the usual tools funders use to raise success rates without raising budgets:

• A pre-proposal or letter-of-inquiry stage, so most applicants write two pages rather than a full proposal
• Narrower thematic priorities, which reduce the pool by defining fewer eligible projects
• Staggered or rotating competitions, which spread review load across the year and keep any single deadline from being swamped
• Submission caps per investigator or per institution
• Lottery or partial-lottery selection among proposals that clear a quality bar, which some research funders have tested to cut reviewer burden

Spencer has not committed to any of these. But "increase fund rates" with a flat budget can mean only fewer applicants per award, and every one of these mechanisms produces that.

Spencer is also asking the field for input. Alongside the letter and FAQ, it posted a questionnaire titled "Share Your Perspective on What the Field Needs Most." Researchers who rely on the paused programs, especially early-career and minority-serving-institution faculty who have the most to lose from a move to invitation-only funding, should fill it out. Funders do read these, and the people who reply are not usually the people who would be shut out by a narrower design.

How education researchers should plan the next twelve months

Researchers who were planning a Small or Large grant submission in early 2027 should assume no opportunity before the second half of the year and plan their project timelines to match. If a project depends on summer 2027 data collection, a Spencer award made in late 2027 will not pay for it. Look for bridge funding now: internal seed grants, a professional association small-grants program, or a smaller scope that can start without outside money.

Researchers eligible for the programs that continue should look closely at them. The dissertation and postdoctoral fellowships, the RPP competition, and the Transformative Research track are all running. Some applicants who would have defaulted to a Small grant may fit one of these instead, particularly a research-practice partnership with a school district or community organization that is already underway. Applicants who move to these programs will make them more competitive in 2027, so the advantage goes to those who move early.

Racial equity researchers face the sharpest gap. The Racial Equity Research Grants program was one of the few dedicated funding streams in the field, and federal support for equity-focused research has largely gone away since 2025. Other private funders in this space, including the William T. Grant Foundation's research grants on reducing inequality, will probably see more applications during Spencer's pause. Applicants should check those funders' current guidelines and deadlines directly and expect more competition than usual.

Everyone should keep proposals ready to adapt. When Spencer reopens with redesigned programs, the first round will probably be less crowded than later ones, because many researchers will not notice right away. A researcher who has a well-developed project, preliminary data, and a two-page summary ready in June 2027 can respond quickly to whatever format Spencer adopts.

The bottom line

Spencer's pause is a reasonable response to a funding market that has stopped working for applicants. At a 2 percent success rate, the field collectively spends far more hours writing proposals Spencer will decline than Spencer spends funding research, and the foundation is right to say so. The cost is a six-month gap in the most accessible private source of education research money at a time when there are few alternatives. The June 2027 announcement will show whether the redesigned Spencer keeps an open door for researchers without connections, or becomes another funder that is effectively invitation-only.

Researchers rebuilding a 2027 funding plan around the Spencer gap can use Granted to identify alternative education research funders and draft proposals ready to submit when the redesigned competitions open.

Source materials: Spencer Foundation letter to the field, Strategic Refresh FAQ, Spencer research grants page, and Inside Higher Ed coverage.