Foundations of Learning Initiative

Children in an India classroom sit in a circle on the floor and play a math learning game.
Photo: Sandeep Singh | J-PAL
J-PAL’s Foundations of Learning (FoL) Initiative invites teams of cognitive psychologists and J-PAL affiliates to apply for funds to develop and test innovative solutions to improve learning for children in low- and middle-income countries. This includes funding for lab work, pilots and full randomised evaluations.

The FoL initiative aims to shed light on strategies to improve learning by creating better measurement tools, lab testing pedagogical approaches and field-testing scalable models. By developing a pipeline of interdisciplinary researchers in cognitive sciences, psychology and economics, the initiative fills a key gap that researchers face in conducting foundational research. Interdisciplinary research partnerships are rare in academia but will be critical to further the knowledge base on how to improve pedagogical approaches at scale.

The initiative is made possible by support from the Douglas B. Marshall Jr. Family Foundation. It is based at J-PAL Europe and co-chaired by Esther Duflo (MIT) and Elizabeth Spelke (Harvard). 

RFP Status: Opening in 2022
Eligibility: J-PAL affiliates, post-doctoral fellows, invited researchers, and regional offices may apply. See RFP materials for full eligibility requirements.
Contact: Adrien Pawlik, Research Manager, [email protected]

Featured content