Abstract Research‐Practice Partnerships seek to close the research‐practice gap through developing collaborative, authentic partnerships between researchers and community members. Our team has leveraged Research‐Practice Ambassadors to support socially just and equitable partnership processes in schools. We describe how the Ambassadors can support these types of long‐term partnerships by building trusting relationships, uplifting practitioner voice and lived experiences, and strengthening bidirectional communication across research and practice teams. We provide details about the inputs and activities for the Ambassador role, the potential benefits of this role in strengthening partnership processes, and case examples of how our team has used the Ambassador role to strengthen partnerships. Future directions of this work should evaluate the impact of using this Ambassador role and incorporate critical analyses of power.
Hatchimonji et al. (Sun,) studied this question.