Brainscape Labs is a new research grant program for educators, cognitive scientists, and graduate students who want to explore — and further prove — the impact of modern learning science techniques in real classrooms.

Brainscape's web and mobile study platform offers unprecedented access to detailed learner behavior data, enabling rigorous studies on retrieval practice, active recall, spaced repetition, cognitive load management, and interleaving study.

By combining your academic expertise with our technology and data, we can push the boundaries of evidence-based education.  (Looking to just be a cognitive science advisor to Brainscape?  See this opportunity instead.)

Program Benefits

Selected researchers will receive:

  • Full-featured Brainscape access for all study participants (a value of several thousand dollars).
  • Research stipend of $200–$5,000 to support your time and effort. (Depends on size of project and background of applicant.)
  • Completion bonus for delivering a final study (regardless of whether results are favorable to Brainscape methods).
  • Publication support, including editorial cooperation and assistance with submissions to academic or industry journals.
  • Direct collaboration with Brainscape’s team, who will help ensure your study design leverages the platform’s most powerful capabilities.

What Makes This Program Unique

Brainscape can export granular, time-stamped study data for every participating student, including:

  • Each flashcard studied
  • Device type used (desktop or mobile)
  • Date and time of study
  • Number of seconds spent per card
  • Self-reported confidence ratings
  • Study mode used (single-deck vs. interleaved topics)

This level of behavioral detail allows you to correlate study habits directly with course grades or exam outcomes, giving your research unmatched precision.

Responsibilities

Grant recipients must:

  • Create or procure the flashcard content that participants will study, either on your own, in cooperation with Brainscape, or directly from Brainscape's existing content marketplace
  • Discuss data export requirements with Brainscape, to ensure the proper collection is in place before the study is underway
  • Integrate Brainscape into participant study routines according to the approved research design.
  • Track participant usage and ensure a sufficient number of learners engage with the platform for meaningful analysis throughout the duration of the study.
  • Maintain communication with Brainscape Labs staff at agreed-upon checkpoints to provide progress updates.
  • Collect necessary outcome data from course or exam results to enable correlation with Brainscape study data.
  • Adhere to ethical research practices, including obtaining all required permissions, consents, and institutional review approvals (if applicable).
  • Deliver a final written report of findings within 9 months of acceptance, including:
    • A summary of research methodology
    • Key results (whether favorable or not)
    • Data analysis and interpretation
    • Recommendations for future research
    • Recommendations on where to publish

Eligibility

Applicants must:

  • Be an educator, researcher, or graduate student in education, psychology, or a related field.
  • Have access to a classroom or defined cohort of learners studying for a specific subject and taking a final assessment.
  • Be able to integrate Brainscape into the learning process for at least a portion of the cohort (control groups using other methods are welcome).
  • Commit to completing the research within 9 months of acceptance.

Application Process

  1. Prepare your submission with:
    • A link to your professional profile (e.g., faculty page, LinkedIn, Google Scholar).
    • A brief description of your proposed study, including:
      • The research question(s)
      • How you will integrate Brainscape into your cohort’s study process
      • How you plan to measure and compare learning outcomes
  2. Submit your application via email to labs@brainscape.com with the subject line: Brainscape Labs Research Application – [Your Name].
  3. Selection criteria include:
    • Academic merit of the proposal
    • Feasibility of the research design
    • Potential contribution to the learning sciences community

Key Dates

  • Application deadline: Rolling
  • Notification of acceptance: Within 2 weeks of submission
  • Research completion deadline: 9 months from acceptance

To Apply

If you’re ready to deepen our collective understanding of how people learn best — and have your research powered by state-of-the-art study analytics — we invite you to apply.

Just submit the above to labs@brainscape.com, and you'll hear from us soon!

🌐 Learn more about Brainscape: www.brainscape.com