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Accomplishments:

• Several of the research papers had significant impact on community action and public policy. The Research Program led to major findings on key violence prevention issues, lending support to the policy goal of educating the public, policymakers and opinion leaders. Significant research that had effect on informing public policy on firearms and alcohol access was published by VPI grantees.
• At the midpoint evaluation of the Initiative, the Research Program grantees had produced at least 94 publications and participated in over 140 presentations in forums, conferences and academic settings. Many grantees made presentations at numerous national professional associations and published in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. In addition, much research was carried out by Academic Fellows.

Challenges:

• Limited dissemination of research outside of academic circles made the goal of influencing public policy difficult to achieve. Many VPI researchers, as well as Academic Fellows, made presentations before state and national professional associations and conferences and published in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. The majority of the TCWF-funded research papers were not used to inform public policy. At the five-year mark, only four of 15 completed research projects had been utilized extensively to inform policy education and advocacy.

Lessons Learned:

• If the intent of funding research is to impact public policy, funding of applied research may be more practical and effective. Those research papers that were most successful included applied research methodologies, and were utilized in the VPI policy advocacy efforts, as compared to those grantees that had historically published solely for academic circles.
• There were other strategies for supporting youth violence prevention research. At least two of the researchers funded in the VPI Research Program became PIs in the Academic Fellows Program and were able to continue research projects as well as to support and mentor Fellows. Also, a critical mass of the Academic Fellows published peer-reviewed articles during their fellowships.