Introducing and illustrating <scp>SUP</scp> . <scp>ME</scp> : A monitoring and evaluation framework for School–University Partnerships across development phases

Abstract School–university partnerships (SUPs) are innovation hubs aiming at supporting teaching and learning practices through long‐term collaborations between K‐12 schools and research institutions. SUPs' monitoring and evaluation are still challenging as existing works only partially address the relevant aspects of such kinds of SUPs. To date, no framework supports the monitoring and evaluation of all SUP phases while addressing the collaboration and its influence on teaching and learning. This article presents a framework to support the monitoring and evaluation of SUPs that aim to improve teaching and learning practices, throughout all phases of SUPs. The framework suggests to stakeholders what they can evaluate through a catalogue of key factors involved in the monitoring and evaluation of SUPs, while providing a flexible analytical tool, a protocol, providing guidance as to when and how to monitor different factors in their SUPs, and a checklist for periodical self‐assessment. This article presents the first version of SUP.ME and uses the secondary analysis of interview data as an illustrative case to show how the concepts in this framework can be identified and interpreted in a real context. We also provide a vignette based on the illustrative case to exemplify how the framework could be used in practice. While the illustrative case focuses only on the implementation phase, the framework itself is designed to support stakeholders across all SUP phases: fostering collaboration in early stages, assessing functioning during implementation, and guiding reflection and planning for sustainability. Further studies could explore framework adoption and use in real scenarios across all SUP phases.