Institutional & Research Capacity Solutions

Building stronger researchers. Stronger faculty. Stronger institutions.

Rising Scholars partners with colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, foundations, professional associations, and other mission-driven organizations to strengthen the people, systems, and strategies that make research and scholarly success possible.

Many institutions want to expand research productivity, increase external funding, strengthen faculty scholarship, improve doctoral persistence, and create meaningful research opportunities for students—but may not have the internal capacity, staffing, or infrastructure to provide every level of support required.

Rising Scholars helps close that gap.

Our institutional solutions combine research-capacity assessment, faculty development, doctoral success programming, grant readiness, scholarly writing, research methodology, evaluation, and strategic capacity building.

Whether your organization needs to understand its current research capacity, develop faculty scholars, support doctoral students, strengthen its research infrastructure, or demonstrate program impact, Rising Scholars can design a pathway from assessment to action to measurable outcomes.

Who We Serve

Rising Scholars works with organizations seeking to expand research, scholarship, graduate education, and institutional capacity, including:

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs)
Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)
Rural colleges and universities
Community colleges
Small and teaching-focused institutions
Faith-based colleges and universities
Graduate and doctoral programs
Nonprofit and community organizations
Foundations and philanthropic organizations
Professional associations
Workforce and community-development organizations

Our model is particularly valuable for organizations that want to increase capacity without having to build every service or function internally.

Our Solutions

1. Rising Scholars Research Capacity Assessment™

Understand where you are. Identify what is limiting growth. Build a roadmap for what comes next.

The Rising Scholars Research Capacity Assessment provides institutional leaders with a comprehensive picture of their organization's current research capacity and identifies the areas where targeted investment can have the greatest impact.

Rather than relying on a single survey, our assessment combines stakeholder perspectives, institutional evidence, leadership interviews, organizational data, and structured analysis.

We assess six critical dimensions:

Faculty Research Capacity - Research agendas, methodology, scholarly writing, publication readiness, mentoring, collaboration, workload, and research development.
Research Infrastructure & Support - Research administration, policies, processes, resources, technology, methodological support, compliance, and research tracking.
Grants & External Funding Capacity - Funding discovery, proposal development, pre-award support, post-award capacity, grant readiness, and institutional funding strategy.
Student Research & Scholar Pipeline - Student research participation, research-methods preparation, mentoring, scholarly dissemination, and pathways to graduate and doctoral education.
Research Culture, Strategy & Leadership - Leadership commitment, strategic alignment, incentives, expectations, investment, communication, and institutional research priorities.
Partnerships & Sustainability - Academic, government, foundation, industry, and community partnerships, along with strategies for sustaining research growth.

What your institution receives

Each assessment produces:

Institutional Research Capacity Score
Six dimension-level capacity scores
Research Capacity Maturity Level
Institutional strengths and barriers analysis
Capacity Gap Analysis
Priority recommendations
Opportunity Matrix
12-month Research Capacity Roadmap
Executive leadership briefing
Recommendations for implementation

The result is not simply another institutional report.

It is a decision-making tool for determining where to invest next.

Ideal for

Institutions preparing to expand research activity, pursue new funding opportunities, strengthen faculty scholarship, develop research infrastructure, or determine where capacity-building investments should be directed.

Founding Partner opportunities may be available for qualifying institutions.

Request a Research Capacity Consultaion

2. Institutional Research Capacity Accelerator™

Move from assessment to action.

Identifying research-capacity gaps is only the beginning.

The Rising Scholars Institutional Research Capacity Accelerator helps institutions implement the systems, faculty-development strategies, research practices, and scholarly pipelines necessary to create measurable improvement.

The Accelerator can follow a Rising Scholars Research Capacity Assessment or be customized for institutions that have already identified their priorities.

Accelerator services may include:

Faculty research-development cohorts
Research agenda development
Research methodology training
Scholarly and academic writing development
Manuscript development and publication planning
Grant-readiness training
Grant concept and proposal development
Research mentoring
Monthly research-development office hours
Student research development
Graduate and doctoral pipeline development
Research collaboration strategies
Research-output tracking
Leadership consultation
Institutional research-capacity planning

From activity to outcomes

Our goal is not simply to count workshops.

We help institutions track tangible outputs such as:

Faculty research agendas developed
Research projects advanced
Manuscripts developed
Manuscripts submitted
Grant concepts developed
Proposals submitted
Faculty participating in research
Student research participation
Research collaborations developed
External funding opportunities pursued

Engagement options

Six-Month Institutional Accelerator

A focused capacity-building engagement designed to produce measurable near-term progress.

12-Month Institutional Partnership

A deeper partnership supporting sustained faculty, student, grant, and institutional research development.

Managed Research Capacity Partnership

Customized ongoing support for institutions seeking an external partner to provide portions of their research-development infrastructure.

Request for an Institutional Partnership Consultation

3. Rising Scholars Doctoral Completion Academy™

Helping doctoral scholars move from uncertainty to completion.

Doctoral students often possess the ability to complete their degrees but lack consistent access to research guidance, scholarly community, methodology support, academic writing development, and structured accountability.

These challenges can be especially significant for:

ABD doctoral students
First-generation doctoral students
Online doctoral students
Working adult scholars
International doctoral students
Students navigating dissertation research with limited support

The Rising Scholars Doctoral Completion Academy provides a structured scholarly environment designed to help doctoral students make measurable progress.

Academy programming may include:

Dissertation planning
Research-question development
Literature-review development
Research methodology
Scholarly writing
Proposal development
Research troubleshooting
Dissertation milestone planning
Accountability structures
Research office hours
Scholar mentoring
Peer scholarly community
Defense preparation
Dissertation-to-publication planning

4. Rising Scholars Faculty Research Accelerator™

Turn faculty research ideas into scholarly outputs.

Faculty at teaching-intensive and resource-constrained institutions often balance significant teaching, advising, service, and administrative responsibilities while simultaneously being expected to maintain scholarly productivity.

The Faculty Research Accelerator provides a structured pathway for moving faculty scholarship forward.

The pathway

Research Idea

→ Research Agenda

→ Research Design & Methodology

→ Scholarly Writing

→ Manuscript Development

→ Publication Strategy

→ Grant & Funding Opportunities

→ Next Research Project

Participants work toward tangible scholarly outputs rather than simply attending professional-development workshops.

Faculty may leave the program with:

A defined research agenda
A developed or advanced research project
A manuscript in development
A publication strategy
Identified publication targets
A grant concept or funding prospect
New research collaborations
A 12-month scholarship plan

Designed for

Early-career faculty
Teaching-intensive faculty
Faculty developing research agendas
Faculty seeking publication
Faculty returning to scholarship
Faculty preparing grant proposals
Institutions seeking greater scholarly productivity

Programs can be delivered for a single institution or as sponsored multi-institution faculty cohorts.

Request for a Faculty Research Cohort Pathway

5. Rising Scholars Research & Evaluation Partnership™

Turn your organization's work into evidence.

Organizations are increasingly expected to demonstrate not only what they do, but whether it works and what impact it creates.

Many nonprofits, educational institutions, community organizations, foundations, and associations need rigorous research and evaluation support without maintaining a full internal research department.

Rising Scholars can serve as that partner.

Research and evaluation services may include:

Program evaluation
Evaluation planning
Needs assessments
Literature reviews
Survey development
Qualitative research
Quantitative research
Data analysis
Outcome measurement
Evaluation frameworks
Impact reporting
Research design
Grant evidence development
Research consultation

Ideal for organizations asking:

How do we demonstrate our impact?
What outcomes should we measure?
What evidence will strengthen our grant proposal?
How do we evaluate a new program?
What does our data actually tell us?
How can we communicate results to funders and stakeholders?

Rising Scholars can support individual projects or establish an ongoing research and evaluation partnership.

Discuss a Research or Evaluation Project

A Different Approach to Institutional Capacity Building

We don't begin by assuming what your institution needs.

Our approach follows a deliberate progression:

1. Assess

Understand current capacity, strengths, barriers, and institutional priorities.

2. Prioritize

Identify the areas where intervention can produce the greatest impact.

3. Design

Develop an implementation strategy aligned with institutional goals and available resources.

4. Build

Deliver structured research, faculty, student, grant, or organizational capacity-building services.

5. Measure

Track participation, outputs, milestones, and institutional outcomes.

6. Sustain

Develop the systems, partnerships, funding strategies, and internal capacity necessary to continue the work.

This allows Rising Scholars to meet institutions where they are rather than forcing every organization into the same program.

From Service Provider to Institutional Partner

Some institutions need a workshop.

Others need a faculty cohort.

Others need an assessment and strategic roadmap.

And some need a long-term partner capable of helping provide research-development infrastructure that would otherwise require significant internal staffing and investment.

Rising Scholars is building the capacity to serve across that continuum.

Our long-term institutional partnerships may combine:

Research Capacity Assessment
Faculty Scholar Development
Grant Readiness
Student Research Development
Doctoral Success
Research & Evaluation
Research Strategy into a customized institutional capacity solution.

Why Rising Scholars?

Our work sits at the intersection of research development, scholar development, institutional capacity, and measurable impact.

Rather than separating academic writing, research methodology, faculty development, doctoral support, grants, and evaluation into unrelated services, Rising Scholars brings them together around one central objective:

Building the capacity of scholars and institutions to conduct, communicate, fund, and sustain meaningful research.

Start With a Conversation

You do not need to know which Rising Scholars service you need before contacting us.

Tell us what your institution or organization is trying to accomplish.

We will help determine whether the appropriate starting point is a Research Capacity Assessment, Institutional Accelerator, Faculty Research Accelerator, Doctoral Completion Academy, Research & Evaluation Partnership, or customized institutional engagement.

Ready to explore what's possible?

Rising Scholars
Building Scholars. Strengthening Institutions. Expanding Research Capacity.

Schedule an Institutional Consultation

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