Blog | 03 September 2025 Global Collaboration to Capture Variability in Child Development Ensuring that children around the world can flourish is one of the most important goals of our time. Developmental science has made major strides in understanding how children grow, learn, and thrive – but there’s still much we don’t know. First, the field has traditionally focused on average effects [1, 2], often overlooking the rich […] Read more about Global Collaboration to Capture Variability in Child Development Read more about Global Collaboration to Capture Variability in Child Development
Blog | 09 May 2026 When Your Ruler Is Wrong: How Rescoring Improves Measurement in LEVANTE Adaptive tests are remarkable tools: instead of giving every child the same 50 questions, the computer picks the next question based on how the child is doing, zeroing in on their ability with a much shorter test. In practice, that efficiency depends on one thing going right: the system has to know how hard each […] Read more about When Your Ruler Is Wrong: How Rescoring Improves Measurement in LEVANTE Read more about When Your Ruler Is Wrong: How Rescoring Improves Measurement in LEVANTE
News | 24 April 2026 Support for Global South Scholars Planned targeted support for proposals from Global South. LEVANTE is launching a new call for proposals, with the aim of continuing to build a truly inclusive and globally representative network. To this end, the Foundation will also offer active support to Global South researchers. This includes: Who qualifies as a Global South researcher? For this […] Read more about Support for Global South Scholars Read more about Support for Global South Scholars
News | 13 April 2026 LEVANTE opens third Call for Proposals The Jacobs Foundation has launched the 2026 Call for Proposals for the Learning Variability Network Exchange (LEVANTE), offering up to USD 6 million in funding to research learning variability and its impact at the individual, group, and contextual levels. The Jacobs Foundation is excited to announce the 2026 Call for Proposals for its flagship initiative, […] Read more about LEVANTE opens third Call for Proposals Read more about LEVANTE opens third Call for Proposals
Blog | 07 April 2026 How we validate translations When we set out to build a shared battery of tasks for children across countries, translation quickly emerged as one of the hardest technical problems. If a task does not “speak every child’s language” in a way that is natural and culturally grounded, comparisons across sites start to break down. Since the start of the […] Read more about How we validate translations Read more about How we validate translations
Blog | 09 March 2026 LEVANTE Data Release and Hackathon — Join us this summer! Robust discoveries in developmental science can be accelerated when open, high-quality datasets are easily accessible and used alongside best practices for reproducible research. To support this work, we are excited to announce the first publicly available LEVANTE dataset and an upcoming hackathon in summer 2026. Together, these contributions mark important steps forward for the LEVANTE […] Read more about LEVANTE Data Release and Hackathon — Join us this summer! Read more about LEVANTE Data Release and Hackathon — Join us this summer!
Blog | 13 February 2026 From Averages to Individuals: The Next Frontier of Evidence-Based Education Over the past decade, the landscape of education policy has undergone a quiet revolution. We have moved away from “gut feelings” about what works best for children toward a rigorous, evidence-informed approach. The rise of the Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)—often considered the “gold standard” for causal evidence—has been the engine of this change. Numerous foundations […] Read more about From Averages to Individuals: The Next Frontier of Evidence-Based Education Read more about From Averages to Individuals: The Next Frontier of Evidence-Based Education