Phase 2 of the Global Innovations for Character Development (GICD) initiative of the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) extends and enhances capacity-building support for GICD grantees. Managed by, the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (JCCV), University of Birmingham, UK, the GICD Platform is a collaborative partnership with the Institute of Applied Research in Youth Development (IARYD), Tufts University, USA, and the Institute for Research on Youth Thriving and Evaluation (RYTE), Montclair State University, USA. Bringing together these three platform teams from Phase 1 of the GICD, as well as internationally renowned external consultants, the project builds on the work already undertaken by the three teams to ensure program-specific and culturally-sensitive support for GICD grantees, as well as broadening the grantees’ knowledge and expertise within the field of character development. Providing access to world-leading expertise in character development, activities of Phase 2 of the Platform focus on key themes, including:

• Strengthening grantees conceptual, evaluation, and methodological skills, including developing their knowledge of existing international research and use of relevant literature;
• Generating opportunities among grantees and those working in character development for peer learning and knowledge exchange;
• Transferring learning to practice and designing and beginning to implement plans for sustainability and scale (including future funding efforts); and,
• Supporting the creation and dissemination of high-quality research outputs.

By elevating the abilities and enhancing the quality of the outcomes and outputs generated by the grantees, the Platform catalyzes grantees to become more capable and confident contributors to the global network the Foundation seeks to instantiate through its funding. Accordingly, our integrated Platform team provides expert, project-specific support for each grantee team, including;

• The creation of an international team of consultant character researchers, evaluators, and practitioners (including those in LMICs) to provide additional specific and focused support for grantees;
• The development and facilitation of systems of peer-to-peer support to bring teams together to share ideas, expertise, and findings;
• A variety of events designed to be responsive to the specific contexts and work of grantees, for example the conceptual focus of the project; the research design; or, the specific group and geographic area involved.

Managers of the platform team traveled to Bogota in November 2022 to attend a TWCF Conference on Human Flourishing and join GICD grantees from the LAC region. Time was spent meeting with individual grantees and engaging in peer learning workshops related to CVD. Discussions are taking place about the IARYD team providing a few days of additional training and peer-to-peer learning to GICD in Africa at some point during the summer of 2023.