Grand Challenges Roundtable: Advancing the Grand Challenges: Pathways and Issues

The Grand Challenges represent an opportunity to impact intractable social problems over the next decade by accelerating social work science, educational innovation, and new forms of practitioner engagement.  Since the formal launch of the Grand Challenges in January 2016, an unanticipated and widening variety of responses have appeared across the academic community.  This has opened new possibilities for engagement and has demonstrated the power of the Grand Challenges to harness students, universities, governments, professional organizations, and foundations in the overarching interest of social well-being.  This panel will help to summarize the variety of initiatives that have emerged, including early examples of progress in development of resources and public attention.    Possibilities for participation in the Grand Challenges effort will be identified for institutions of different sizes and disciplinary configurations.  Issues in future implementation will be explored, including implications for scientific organization of our field, doctoral education, collaboration with practitioners, practice research networks, and social policy.  The distinctive responsibilities of universities, the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, and the Society for Social Work and Research will be examined, together with the question of how success will ultimately be measured.