FAQs

The earliest possible start date for the LEVANTE grant is April 2025. Funds can only be distributed once they have been officially approved by the Board of Trustees (March 2025). Once this has happened, it depends on the formal administrative processes (i.e. agreements, …), which vary depending on the academic institution and can typically take between 1-3 months.

Indirect costs are allowed, with overheads limited to 10%, and must be accounted for within the appropriate funding category.

As a general rule, the salary of the PI should not be included to be covered by LEVANTE funds. However, if it is absolutely necessary to include part of the PI’s salary, the rationale for such decision must be provided, and allocation should remain as low as possible. Salaries of other faculty members (e.g. research assistants, students, post-docs), may be included in the budget and justified as usual in relation to their specific role and contribution to the project.

Please note that proposals that allocate the majority of the budget to research activities rather than to the PI’s salary are likely to be prioritised, as they are more in line with LEVANTE’s emphasis on supporting high quality scientific research.

Funds will be granted to and administered by one university under a main agreement, and you will need to establish sub-agreements with the universities with which you collaborate.

Representative samples are preferred. There is no minimum sample size and they should be determined based on the site’s research question and resources: https://researcher.levante-network.org/sampling-recruitment-administration/sampling. We recognize the challenges involved in representative sampling. Therefore, as is standard in research, all planned samples should be thoroughly described so that readers can assess their representativeness relative to the local population.

Projects selected for funding by the Jacobs Foundation under the LEVANTE Framework initiative must use the full set of measures. One exception however is when the project involves the extension of the LEVANTE Framework to other languages or cultures, in which case some measures may not be applicable. Research groups who become LEVANTE partners without requesting funding can administer any subset of LEVANTE’s open access measures.

Yes, collaborative proposals are strongly encouraged including proposals involving different research groups from either the same or different countries.

Any additional measures can be included in a proposed LEVANTE study, as long as they do not interfere with the administration of the LEVANTE measures. Following an open science approach, we strongly encourage projects with additional data collection to share these data with the broader scientific community in a format similar to the LEVANTE measures. Further details on this approach can be found at LEVANTE Open Science.

No. LEVANTE measures are completely open access. There are several ways to join the LEVANTE network – you also can become a partner to use the LEVANTE measures for your project. Proposals are only necessary when submitting a request for funding.

No data cleaning or preparations are required for data collected using the LEVANTE Core Measures. Data collection happens through the LEVANTE dashboard. Data then flow through a set of validations to the LEVANTE data repository (LDR). Researchers access data in a standardized format through the LDR. These data become part of the larger public dataset on a regular data release schedule.

The Call for Proposals will open on August 12, 2024. The application will go through an initial application phase. If your initial application is successful, you will be invited to submit a full proposal. After your extended proposal has been reviewed, you may be invited to an interview with the review panel. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by the end of February 2025, with full funding expected by May 2025.

All LEVANTE measures are administered via laptop or tablet computers. The number of children who could access the measures simultaneously is contingent on the availability of these devices and the logistics of the research team and schools. Supervisory effort is currently being pilot tested and is dependent on the ages of the children being tested. Younger children will require more assistance/supervision than older children (for recommendations see Sampling, recruitment, and administration guidelines). Further details will be shared with investigators as the results of pilot testing become available.

Yes, the measures have been designed specifically for the target age range and have been piloted extensively across the full range. Further, age-dependent starting items and adaptive testing are being implemented.

No, it is not necessary. The assumption is that the data aggregation works as an accelerated longitudinal design. The only requirement is to have at least three waves of data collection over three years.

The caregiver report survey is also administered through the LEVANTE dashboard. In contexts where caregivers are unable to access a device for completing the survey or where an interview format is preferred, accommodations can be made for alternative administration procedures. In these cases, you will need to explain how you plan to share the data. Please find more information here.

Further details on the core assessment measures are expected to be shared in Autumn 2024, pending results of the pilot data collection and psychometric analyses. The different areas and specific measures collected through the LEVANTE platform can be found here.

To use the LEVANTE Core Assessment Measures, researchers will need to register (link to become available). The LEVANTE Core Assessment Measures are currently being piloted across different languages and contexts, to ensure comparable psychometric properties including but not limited to their reliability and validity. The first results are expected in the Autumn 2024, and those showing the expected properties will be taken forward and made available more broadly toward the end of the year.

The proposed studies must follow children for two years, including an initial test (year 0), year 1, year 2. As we are interested in identifying developmental trajectories in learning variability, it is anticipated that at least 3 waves of data collection would need to be conducted. If you have specific suggestions for denser data collection plans or time points, please elaborate on the proposal and provide a rationale.

The released measures include age adaptations and parallel versions so that they can be administered on a yearly basis to capture children’s developmental trajectories. 

Yes, however the measures are not normed in this population but in typically developing children.

All data collected through LEVANTE is completely de-identified and the LEVANTE Core Assessment Measures and LEVANTE Data Repository will never contain any personally identifying information. Individual sites must obtain their own ethical approvals for data collection but no personally identifying information of any type will be shared between individual sites and the LEVANTE Data Repository.

As with any research study, it is important to highlight that these measures are not intended for individual feedback to an individual child. The sensitivity of the information and the potential consequences of misreporting need to be considered. Therefore, we suggest that you exercise caution and discuss this with the Data Coordinating Center at the time of project approval.

Candidates must have obtained a PhD at least 5 years prior to application, and their position must be confirmed for the duration of the proposed project.

LEVANTE is an international framework with a goal to improve our understanding of variability in learning and development through coordinated data collection from any country. The question on the application regarding a geographic focus refers to the focus of investigators’ own research.

For the initial application, a budget is not required. However, if invited to submit an extended proposal, you will be asked to include a budgetary overview as well as a timeline of planned activities in your submission.

Yes.