The NCARB Prize for Creative Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy was initiated in 2001 in response to Building Community: A New Future for Architecture Education, a report that summarized the findings of a 1996 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Education study of architecture education and architecture practice. Commonly referred to as The Boyer Report, in recognition of Dr. Ernest Boyer, a noted educator, former U.S. Commissioner of Education, and co-author, the report identified a “sense of disconnection…between the two separate worlds of architecture education and practice.” The 30-month study examined architecture programs and architecture firms and surveyed students, faculty, administration, alumni, interns, and architects. It was significant because it drew greater attention to “the gulf dividing architecture schools and the practice world [that] has grown perilously wide.”

NCARB’s response to the need to bridge this gulf was the NCARB Prize, a program developed to encourage, reward, and showcase diverse initiatives, activities, and courses that integrate architecture practice and architecture education in an academic setting. Over its nine-year history, the NCARB Prize has recognized 47 individual projects that have merged practice and education in architecture curriculum and related program settings; to date NCARB has awarded nearly $500,000 to these programs.

In 2006, NCARB initiated the NCARB Grant for the Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy to expand the focus of the NCARB Prize program and provide funding for practice-education initiatives that have not yet been implemented. Response to both programs demonstrates that they are highly valued by the academy and the profession and that they have significantly increased the involvement of practicing architects in the education of future architects.