When the Penn State VETERANetwork was formed, the research team listened to the partners to drive further data analysis, new data collection, and action. The partners were in positions of influence and could interpret the TVMI findings for systems operating within the veteran space. The first task of the hub was to prioritize the research topics and research questions the partners suggested for discussion and decision-making. Each partner proposed research questions, and these were categorized into eight themes for a survey: employment, entrepreneurship, financial well-being, health and wellness, learning/education/training, metrics, MCT, and veteran vs. civilian comparisons. The highest collective priorities emerged as veteran employment and understanding aspects of a successful MCT. In addition, partners ranked thirty proposed research questions, and those named as a first or second priority by any partner were deemed high-priority. These included characteristics of successful and unsuccessful transitions, veterans’ and veteran spouses’ pursuit of entrepreneurial goals, and metrics by domain for each of the foundations to track program progress and effectiveness. Lastly, partners ranked topics within each of the eight categories and the collective means were used to determine priorities within the categories. For example, within the employment category, the partners ranked 14 items and were most interested in demographic trends for employability and an analysis of females and workforce outcomes.

Partners were invited to inform and be informed by the TVMI data analyses. TVMI initially collected six waves of data across 3 years, and it provided the partners a greater understanding of the risks veterans face. However, RPP partnerships are not limited in scope; they evolve and are enduring. In 2020, the partners’ interest in continued data collection and interpretation resulted in an expansion of TVMI.

The partners moved beyond the initial goals of TVMI data collection and extended the longitudinal survey through a new survey called the Veterans Engaging in Transition Studies (VETS; see Figure 2). During the co-production of this survey, the partners were queried about emerging data interests and changing circumstances in the veteran space, and new lines of questions were added to the original TVMI survey during survey design (e.g., higher education experiences and debt obligations, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic). The VETS survey launched in early winter 2020. The TVMI sample had been contacted, and a large subset of the sample agreed to participate in the expanded VETS survey effort (Wave 7, n = 3,180, 51 months since separation). An 8th wave of longitudinal data collection occurred in 2023, which was 6 ½ years post-separation for the survey participants (n = 2,970). VETS development and deployment funders included a sub-set of the hub partners: Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust, The Heinz Endowments, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Wounded Warrior Project, Inc.

Steps were taken early in the partnership’s development to ensure usable survey results. A monthly webinar series of data-investigation sessions was initiated and continues to be held; the research team shares survey data analyses followed by data-translation discussions. During each webinar, a new topic, based on the partners’ requested data analyses, is explored, such as disparities in risk for specific veteran subgroups (e.g., junior enlisted paygrades and unemployment and persistent problematic financial status, females and military sexual trauma (MST), veterans with poor social connections/low social satisfaction and mental health concerns). In addition, a website with a password-protected partners’ portal was established to share materials, such as webinar recordings, data reports, and publications. Furthermore, in 2021, independent feedback sessions were conducted between the research team and each foundation to better understand each organization’s role in supporting veteran well-being and to make the data actionable for each organization’s efforts. This process of engagement with implementing partners and users was imperative to continuous quality improvement, and it aligned with the AIDED (Assess, Innovate, Develop, Engage, and Devolve) model’s steps of assessing the environmental context and innovating to fit user receptivity (12). The result was a list of products, tools, services, and future analyses that could be used to guide the strategic direction of the RPP partnership.

A primary focus from the hub’s inception has also been to use data to define successful MCT by exploring risks and protective factors. During TVMI, an adapted Common Components Analysis (CCA) was developed to identify components of the programs and services used by the surveyed veterans in the four well-being domains (13). Traditionally, a CCA distills the results of program evaluations from randomized control trials into key elements that produce intended outcomes. In the adapted CCA, program components were studied in four primary areas (i.e., content, process, barrier reduction, and sustainability), and common components were tested to identify associations with changes in intended program outcomes (e.g., employment, job retention). As the partners’ original interest in the research was to determine how best to strategically fund prevention and intervention programming for veterans, the adapted CCA findings have contributed to their uptake of data findings for programmatic funding and improvement (see Figure 3 for an employment example).

RPP partnerships are impactful when they shift the research paradigm from academic data collection to collaboration that uses evidence to inform action. The partners decided the TVMI and VETS survey data findings needed to be actionable, so scientific evidence could be applied to policy discussions. The partners agreed that engaging in strategic communications could support governmental leaders’ capacity to understand and, consequently, incorporate data findings into improving practices and policies for veterans. Data were used to define successful transition and equip multiple initiatives related to topics such as suicide prevention, economic opportunities, employment and underemployment, and transition needs. One of the policy-focused efforts is highlighted next.

Partners, who were representatives of foundations with established legislative relationships, served as liaisons between legislative staffers and the RPP partnership. They leveraged their connections to share research findings related to MST, and, in real-time, the research team responded to Senators’ and staffers’ questions with in-depth analyses regarding MST. The data set had been analyzed across many outcomes, and the rate of MST reported by the surveyed veterans exceeded the rate reported by the VA. In TVMI, more females than males reported unwanted sexual attention (41% vs. 3.2%) and unwanted sexual contact (17.4% vs. 1.1%) during their military service. The policy implications were discussed, and the data were used to advance the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act. This Act contributed to a defense bill that moved investigation and prosecution from the military chain of command to an Office of Special Trial Counsel and enacted sexual-assault prevention provisions, such as better training (see Table 1). Thus, research uptake can be facilitated when partners’ social connections and expertise are coupled.

Some funders, such as the William T. Grant Foundation (Note: They are not a member of the Penn State VETERANetwork), support studies that examine whether and how RPPs increase the use of research in policymaking (14). Academic institutions can serve as a resource to policy leaders and practice stakeholders as they fund and deliver programs and services. Strong examples of evidence dissemination for social-investment optimization exist, such as Evidence-based Prevention and Intervention Support (known as EPIS) at Pennsylvania State University. Collaborative use of evidence by higher education, state and federal agencies, and private industry and funders is a growing governmental priority. The Biden-Harris Administration’s “Year of Evidence for Action” and the first-ever White House Summit on Evidence for Action, which was co-hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget in early 2023, is an example of this (15).

An underlying mechanism for influencing policy is recognizing that policymakers cannot and do not need to be experts in topics to produce sound policy. Our RPP partnership shared the applied science behind existing societal problems. This promoted nonpartisan, critical thinking of core issues and resulted in solutions research has shown to be effective and efficient.

Partners have verbalized that engagement has been beneficial, and they have sought to expand on the original research agenda to identify additional practical data applications. Each foundation intends to meet its own organizational and philanthropic objectives. Similarly, the research team has been accountable to its peers through journal publications and presentations that communicate data findings to the research community; however, those academic efforts are considered secondary to actively collaborating with the partners. The primary focus has been translating data into meaningful action for the partners’ current and future grant portfolios and to advance the nation’s commitment to veterans. This work ranged from realigning portfolio grantees’ logic models with intended outcomes to creating visualizations of veteran, program, and geographic data to tell the story of post-9/11 veterans’ experiences and outcomes. An example of elevating data findings to the next level of usability follows.

A key takeaway from the TVMI study was that a screener that addressed veteran risk factors and program-component needs (e.g., interviewing practices for those looking for a job, social programs for those dealing with feelings of isolation) could enhance veteran-serving providers’ effectiveness (e.g., from prevention to treatment programs). Thus, the Veteran Transition Screener (VTS) was developed to help providers determine the level of support needed by the veterans with whom they work and to match veterans’ needs to the type of program components that are most likely to result in positive well-being outcomes. The online screener contains seven sections: background information (i.e., demographics), specific experiences (i.e., combat experiences, moral injury, adverse childhood experiences, MST, and VA disability rating), and a section for each of the well-being domains. Given the focus differences of veteran-serving organizations, providers can select which sections they give to their clients; the background information and specific experiences sections are completed by all clients as the categories in these two sections were found to be robust predictors of risk factors for MCT success across all well-being domains (see Table 2). In 2022–23, a pilot of the VTS was funded by one of the hub’s partners and was conducted in the field with veteran-serving providers to identify areas for improvement (e.g., items, structure, and reporting). The pilot providers included a cross-sector collaborative, based in San Diego, California, who matches transitioning Service members with Peer Navigators to address challenges related to employment, housing, injury, and MCT, and a national non-profit that provides employment support to Service members, veterans, and military spouses. The VTS was refined following strategies outlined in the Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle and Model for Improvement (16, 17) based on feedback from the veteran-serving providers and collected client data. Currently, the VTS is being built into a learning-management system to automatically generate reports. VTS, and other applications of data, are positively impacting service providers’ ability to meet veterans’ needs using evidence-informed strategies.

Foundations often invest in programs/services that vow a positive societal impact. For some populations, such as post-9/11 veterans, evidence-based programs/services are not available or do not meet all needs. Often programs/services are offered with promises, such as increased employment opportunities, with little or no evidence to substantiate these assurances. For non-profits, research effectiveness and efficacy trials are costly and time-prohibitive, and they demand a high level of research expertise. To counter limitations, the partnership strategized regarding how to utilize the CCA findings and the longitudinal data to create a ready-made comparison sample through propensity score matching. This novel approach capitalized on TVMI and allowed it to be applied within a rigorous quasi-experimental study, which was financially supported by a partnership member.

In 2021, a third-party impact evaluation of Onward to Opportunity (O2O), a career training program offered by the Institute for Veteran and Military Families at Syracuse University for transitioning Service members, veterans, and their spouses, was commissioned. O2O utilizes industry-validated curricula and career-coaching services. The research team created a valid comparison group using the TVMI dataset and program components for a comparison study. Elements of O2O programming (e.g., job training, licensing assistance) were mapped to TVMI content and process components, barrier-reduction components, and sustainability components (18). Then, O2O program-participant data were aligned to the time frame data of the TVMI sample (i.e., 2017–2019) and matched on multiple demographic characteristics, including age, gender, race/ethnicity, pay grade, Service branch, and level of education, using propensity matching.

Next, O2O program outcomes were evaluated with two employment outcomes: starting salary and job retention (19). The analyses demonstrated significant and positive impacts of O2O participation on post-service employment for transitioning Service members and veterans (see Figure 4). For example, findings demonstrated that O2O participants obtained higher salaries, even when O2O participants did not complete their learning pathway or certification exam, than those who did not participate in employment components. This benefit was strongest for veterans who separated, discharged, or retired from military service at an E6 and lower paygrade; this subpopulation often struggles post-service, so findings that indicated their salaries averaged $13,000 higher than those who did not use O2O were promising. The analyses also showed that O2O participants who left their jobs at or before the 6-month mark were twice as likely than the comparison group to leave a job for a better opportunity. This result may reflect O2O’s foci on helping veterans identify and pursue career goals and increase skills to recognize and capitalize on career advancement prospects.

To the authors’ knowledge, O2O is currently the only veteran career-training program that has demonstrated third-party validated effectiveness for program participants with the rigor of a robust experimental design. The RPP partnership not only led to this program validation but to specific program-improvement recommendations (e.g., standardizing O2O orientation and recruiting junior enlisted Service members). Thus, the partnership’s innovative model for using longitudinal study variables within robust comparison analyses has contributed to the research field and community-level programs and services.

This case study highlighted that the research produced in RPP partnerships is valuable and practical. Through a collaborative process, applied research can influence partner organizations’ operational objectives, programmatic investments, policies, and population-specific outcomes. Prior models (e.g., Communities That Care) have demonstrated that data collection and interpretation can galvanize partners from diverse sectors to streamline their prevention and intervention efforts by aligning intended outcomes with targeted population needs (20). This case study expounded how a robust partnership coalesced around ongoing data analyses so that data interpretations could be contextualized and transformed into practical action for prevention and intervention strategies, new policies, and practical tools that better support veterans. With a multitude of partners’ perspectives and ongoing emersion in an exploration of longitudinal data, co-generation and expansion of ideas were cultivated, and this led to action-oriented and creative possibilities.

Farrell and colleagues (21) have recently tried to build upon the Framework for Assessing Research-Practice Partnerships, which was developed by Henrick et al. (9) and later converted into a tool by The Institute for Education Sciences (22), to assess partnership functioning in the education sector. Survey scales related to trust and relationship building, joint decision-making, capacity to use research, and partners’ flexibility are being explored to identify how RPP partnerships can increase research uptake to improve student outcomes. Research uptake can potentially ameliorate public issues (e.g., poor health, drug addiction).

The authors’ RPP partnership’s effectiveness depended on the dimensions put forth by Henrick et al. (9) [*Italicized items in parentheses denote our partnership-specific additions]: building trust and cultivating partnership relationships; conducting rigorous research to inform action; supporting the partner practice organization(s) in achieving its (their) goals (a primary priority for the research team over traditional research and scholarship activities); producing knowledge that can inform educational (veteran) improvement efforts more broadly; and building the capacity of participating researchers, practitioners, practice organizations, and research organizations (and funders) to engage in (applied science) partnership work. Key characteristics of the partnership include humility in acknowledging partners’ expertise and equity in power and decision-making. In addition, mutuality in interactions acknowledges the partners’ desire to understand veterans’ risks and protective factors and specific, evidence-based program components, so they can be strategic in their grant-making and programmatic efforts. Furthermore, co-learning was and is the cornerstone of all of the partnership’s development and sustainability phases, and preparation and discussion of new data analyses are the linchpin. The research teams’ coordination capacity to facilitate dialogue and interpretation of the data was increased by developing a structure for regularly scheduled communications that led to continuous dialogue among the partners; there was an early recognition that data are more valuable when presented in a format that allows for discussion of meaning and practical implications.

The authors have referred to research generically, which can be a nebulous term, especially to community-level providers and implementers who are most frequently the direct line of service to populations in need. The fields of prevention and implementation science have demonstrated that research in the form of evidence-based programs and practices is more effective at impacting community-based outcomes. This is especially true when implementers understand the importance of and adhere to delivery fidelity, that is, the degree to which a program or practice is delivered as intended by developers (23–26). When researchers educate providers and implementers on why and how to use evidence to drive decision-making (e.g., elucidating a program’s theory of change), this acquired knowledge augments providers’ and implementers’ commitment to high-quality implementation and evaluation. In addition, the opportunity for equitable power and bidirectional learning is ignited as researchers, through collaboration, can gain a greater understanding of community needs and implementation factors from the providers’ and implementers’ real-world execution of the programs or practices. Co-interpretation of community context, implementation factors, and collected participant data can occur, and this synergy and shared knowledge can generate innovative solutions and the sustainability of programs and practices that affect positive change in outcomes for populations in need.

Similarly, researchers in RPP partnerships can collaborate and coordinate with prevention and intervention intermediaries (e.g., governmental or policy leaders and foundations or funders) to promote mutual learning and action at the community level to address the needs of veterans and other at-risk populations. Indeed, the authors implore researchers to hone their communication skills to educate intermediaries about research benefits and increase awareness of research possibilities, so interest in partnership peaks. The authors strongly advocate for researchers’ engagement in partnerships to include co-development of research that can be translated into action, so researchers, with intermediaries and practitioners, jointly address real-world applications.

Ernest L. Boyer (27) proposed the following functions of scholarship: discovery, integration, application, and teaching. This case study illustrated how RPP partnerships include elements of each of these functions (see Figure 1). The discovery stage involved the co-development and deployment of the VETS Survey. Integration occurred as the partners interpreted data results through the perspective of veteran-serving organizations. Application was demonstrated as the survey results of rigorous research informed actions such as policy interactions and tool development (e.g., VTS). Teaching occurred as the research team presented data results to the partners and as data was made publicly available to be used as functional knowledge by others (e.g., CCA, MCT definition, risk factors for veterans).

Limitations exist. First, partners have focused interests and a constrained capacity to fund data analyses and dissemination infrastructures. Financial support was directed to survey development and deployment, program evaluation, and tool development. The research team, as part of an academic center, could leverage resources like the skill sets and time of data analysts, managerial and administrative employees, and web designers. External funding streams for researcher-directed infrastructures could bridge research gaps across diverse sectors and for a myriad of populations at the community level. Second, time constraints restricted the amount of data analyses and methodology or tool innovations that could be addressed at one time. Third, for researchers, applied research is often viewed within universities as less rigorous than traditional research, and service or outreach is a secondary activity that is not highly prized or rewarded. Promotion- and tenure- evaluation incentivize basic research and resident education over other types of scholarship that are impactful but more difficult to assess (28, 29). Fourth, for funders, investing in research means fewer resources for programs and services. Fifth, while an alternative to research constrained by the biomedical model and clinical trials was presented, it underscores the need to develop tools to evaluate features of effective partnerships. These tools could be used as part of continuous quality improvement efforts while team dynamics evolve.