Sean Grant

Dr. Grant is a Research Professor with expertise in the synthesis of empirical evidence and expert opinion to inform policy, practice, and research. His work seeks to strengthen methods for identifying and using "what works" across the social, behavioral, and health sciences, with a particular focus on mental health and substance use disorders. He has led several projects to develop methodological standards and tools, including the CONSORT-SPI guideline for reporting social and psychological intervention trials, the Delphi Critical Appraisal Tool, RAND's methodological guidance for the Delphi method, the ROMPER Method for Policy Expert Ratings, and the RAND Patient-Centeredness Method.

At the University of Oregon, he directs research for the HEDCO Institute for Evidence-Based Educational Practice, is an investigator with the Pacific Northwest Evidence-based Practice Center and is a scientist with the Prevention Science Institute. He is also an associate member with the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford and adjunct scientist with the RAND-USC Schaeffer Opioid Policy Tools and Information Center. Prior to UO, he was a Social and Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation affiliated with its Southern California Evidence-based Practice Center, ExpertLens team, Drug Policy Research Center, and core faculty at the RAND School of Public Policy. Following RAND, he was an Associate Professor at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health. Dr. Grant completed his doctorate in Social Intervention as a Clarendon Scholar at the Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention, University of Oxford.

Dr. Grant is regularly invited to advise on evidence standards and synthesis methods. He was invited by the Center for Open Science to serve as the inaugural Chair of the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines Advisory Board for its first major update (TOP 2025). In the United States, he chaired the Administration for Children and Families' technical working group on updating federal criteria for evidence-based early childhood home visiting models and served on the technical expert panel on program review and rating methodology for the Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Internationally, he has served as a methods advisor to the World Health Organization (Guidelines Review Committee), United Nations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Organization for Migration), and the Wellcome Trust (Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Hubs Advisory Committee).

Dr. Grant serves the field as the inaugural Methodological Transparency Editor of the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Associate Methods Editor of Campbell Systematic Reviews, and an editorial board member of Prevention Science. At the Society for Prevention Research, he co-chairs the Standards of Evidence Task Force and special interest groups on open prevention science and research synthesis methods, which has involved guest-editing two special issues of Prevention Science. He is a member of MDRC's The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial (THE-RCT) Network and the advisory board for the GALENOS global living evidence platform for mental health research. For the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, he has advised on the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting learning agenda; the Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education research portfolio; the Annual Methods Meeting; and the Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness and Prevention Services Clearinghouses. His previous service includes chairing the Society for Research Synthesis Methodology's Strategic Plan Task Force, co-chairing the planning committee for the Addiction Health Services Research conference, and serving on the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction's workgroup on evidence-based substance use prevention. He has mentored more than 50 students and early-career researchers throughout his career, including as Director of the HEDCO Undergraduate Scholars Program.