Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Education Research and Professional Developmentpz.harvard.edu

Project Zero is an education research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education that develops pedagogical frameworks, thinking routines, and free tools for K-12 educators worldwide, serving roughly 3,000 educators annually through courses, certifications, and institutional partnerships.

Company typePrivate
Founded1967
HeadquartersCambridge, United States
Headcount11–50
GTM typeB2B
OfferingServices

What Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education does

Project Zero is an education research center housed at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, founded in 1967 by philosopher Nelson Goodman as the oldest research center at HGSE. The organization develops conceptual frameworks, thinking routines, and pedagogical tools — most prominently Visible Thinking, Making Learning Visible, Agency by Design, Pedagogy of Play, and The Open Canopy — and studies learning, creativity, intelligence, and documentation across age groups and educational contexts. Its core offering is intellectual IP rather than commercial software: a free resource library of 500+ tools (Thinking Routines, publications, videos, curriculum guides), research-based frameworks referenced in education literature worldwide, and human-facilitated professional development.

The center operates with a small core staff of 44 employees plus 60+ researchers, fellows, students, and visiting staff from a dozen countries, led by co-directors Liz Dawes Duraisingh and Carrie James alongside principal investigators including Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Steve Seidel, and Shari Tishman. Its products include free digital toolkits, paid online courses (priced $655-$699 per participant for the 13-week LLIT program), PZ Certification programs, the annual Project Zero Classroom conference, ROUNDS monthly discussion groups, podcasts (Thinkability, Why Arts?), and active research projects (Art|Play, Learning Outside-In, MLTV, Children Are Citizens, Project Spectrum). It runs on a hybrid revenue model — primarily grant funding from foundations including the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, Barr Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, Battelle, and Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, supplemented by tuition from professional development courses and financial aid (covering 50-70% of tuition) for eligible educators. Distribution is direct (pz.harvard.edu, conferences, courses) and partnership-driven through institutional collaborators including Boston Public Schools, the Panama Ministry of Education, INDIRE Italy, Innova Schools Peru, SEK Education Spain, Harvard Art Museums, MoMA, Smithsonian, and the Columbus Museum of Art, reaching approximately 3,000 educators annually and millions of learners through free resources.

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education firmographics

Firmographics

Name: Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
Legal name: Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
Website: https://pz.harvard.edu
Company type: Private
Founded year: 1967
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 11–50 employees
Short description: Project Zero is an education research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education that develops pedagogical frameworks, thinking routines, and free tools for K-12 educators worldwide, serving roughly 3,000 educators annually through courses, certifications, and institutional partnerships.
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education industry classification

Industry

Product category: Education Research and Professional Development
NAICS: Educational Support Services (611710), Elementary and Secondary Schools (6111)
SIC: Services-Educational Services (8200)
akta.pro primary industry: Project-Based/Inquiry-Based Learning (School-Delivered) (EDAJAFAN)
akta.pro secondary industries: Innovation & Design Thinking Programs (EDAMAHAD), Engineering Design & Project-Based Learning Programs (EDAMADAB)

Keywords

Education research
Professional development
Thinking routines
Pedagogical frameworks
Educator training

Where Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: Cambridge
HQ country: United States
HQ region: North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education business model

Business model

GTM type: B2B
Offering type: Services
Cost components: Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

Professional Development Fees: PZ generates revenue through tuition fees for online courses and in-person professional development programs. For example, the 13-week LLIT course charges $655-$699 per participant depending on team structure. Financial aid covering 50-70% of tuition is available for eligible educators.
Grant Funding: As a Harvard Graduate School of Education research center founded in 1967, PZ is primarily funded through grants from foundations and government agencies including the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, Barr Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, and others.

Pricing tiers

Model	Billing	Price
Subscription	Multi-year contract	Team pricing (3-6 members from same organization)
Subscription	Multi-year contract	Team of two pricing
Subscription	Multi-year contract	Individual pricing
Other	Pay-as-you-go	Financial Aid

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels10 records

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education product offering

Product offering

Core offering

Project Zero is an education research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education that develops pedagogical frameworks, thinking routines, and research-based tools to help educators make thinking and learning visible. It sells professional development through online courses, an annual conference (Project Zero Classroom), workshops, and PZ Certification programs, and distributes a free library of 500+ resources including its widely used Thinking Routines. The organization also conducts collaborative research with school networks, ministries of education, and cultural institutions worldwide.

Product overview

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is an educational research center (not a unified software product) that offers multiple interconnected products and programs. The core offerings include: a free Thinking Routines library for educators; Professional Development services including online courses, certification programs, and conferences (serving ~3,000 educators annually); a Resource Library with 500+ free tools; and various research frameworks and publications. Major research initiatives include Making Learning Visible (documenting and assessing learning, started 1997), Visible Thinking (thinking routines approach), and Arts PROPEL (arts education). Recent projects include Learning Outside-In (exploring out-of-school learning), The Open Canopy (intercultural learning), and Art|Play (connecting contemporary art with children's play in Boston Public Schools). PZ also publishes books like 'Visible Learners' and 'A Pedagogy of Play' and hosts podcasts including 'Why Arts?' and 'Thinkability'.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

Nearly 3,000 educators participate in PZ professional development annually.
+4 more outcomes

Companies that use Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Customer profile

Named customers7 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education technology and API

Technology

API detail

Has API: No
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

SEK Education of SpaincoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2023SEK Education of Spain is a key partner in the Learning Outside-In project. During the pandemic, SEK Santa Isabel in Madrid created community 'learning paths' in which students explored surrounding communities with the aim of developing well-being. Beginning summer 2023, this multi-year project with PZ aims to analyze impacts on student agency, belonging, curiosity, and delight, and to produce tools for educators designing community-based learning experiences.
Universidad Camilo José Cela (UCJC), SpaincoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearchers, faculty, and students from UCJC's School of Education partner with PZ on the Learning Outside-In project, analyzing impacts of community-based learning experiences on student well-being and contributing to the development of educator assessment tools.
Boston Public Schools (BPS)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBPS is the primary implementation partner for the Art|Play project. PZ collaborated with BPS Department of Early Childhood to design curriculum activities and professional development integrated into the Focus on 3s and Focus on 4s early childhood curricula across 228 classrooms.
Harvard Art MuseumscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHarvard Art Museums partners with PZ on the Art|Play project, providing artworks and archival materials from their collections to design curriculum experiences and pedagogical support materials for Boston Public Schools educators.
Smithsonian Learning LabmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSmithsonian Learning Lab partners with PZ on the Art|Play project, providing access to archival materials and resources to support curriculum design for early childhood educators.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerMoMA partners with PZ on the Art|Play project, providing artworks and educational resources to support the integration of contemporary art practices into Boston Public Schools early childhood curriculum.
Istituto Nazionale Documentazione Innovazione Ricerca Educativa (INDIRE), ItalycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerINDIRE, Italy's national public research institute for education innovation, collaborates with PZ on the Making Learning and Thinking Visible in Italian Secondary Schools (MLTV) project. INDIRE leads dissemination of MLTV guidelines and tools through its Avanguardie Educative network of 500+ Italian schools.
Columbus Museum of Art, OhiocoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThree-year research-practice collaboration between Columbus Museum of Art and PZ on the Cultivating Creative and Civic Capacities (C4) project to investigate and document ways to catalyze young people's creative and civic capacities through museum engagement.
Innova Schools (Peru)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFour-year collaboration between PZ and Innova Schools Peru's network of low-cost schools focused on developing a culture of inquiry-driven teaching and learning. The project explored structures, processes, and practices promoting autonomy, collaboration, and deeper learning. Output included the 'Deeper, Together' white paper.
Panama Ministry of EducationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with Panama's Ministry of Education to design and facilitate learning arcs for ten school-based study groups of teachers and principals. The work aims to strengthen teacher learning communities, promote reflective and inquiry-driven pedagogy, and build local capacity for sustainable professional growth across Panama's public schools.
Reggio Children / Municipal Preschools of Reggio Emilia, ItalycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLong-standing collaborative research partnership with educators from the municipal preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, foundational to the Making Learning Visible project since 1997. This partnership pioneered documentation-based approaches to making learning visible and influenced PZ's core frameworks.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Direct peers

PBLWorks (Buck Institute for Education): PBLWorks is a leading nonprofit focused on project-based learning (PBL) frameworks and educator professional development. It directly parallels PZ's work on inquiry-based, project-based pedagogy in K-12 schools and offers comparable teacher PD, certification, and frameworks.
Exploratorium: San Francisco's Exploratorium develops inquiry-based science learning, educator PD, and research on thinking and learning — overlapping PZ's interest in inquiry, observation, and educator practice. It is also the institutional home of the Institute for Inquiry.
EL Education: EL Education is a K-12 school network and PD organization that designs project-based, inquiry-driven curricula and educator training. Its combination of frameworks, professional development, and school-level implementation closely mirrors PZ's hybrid research-to-practice model.
Fondazione Reggio Children: Reggio Children disseminates the educational philosophy of Reggio Emilia preschools and runs international educator PD and research collaborations. It is PZ's longstanding research partner on Making Learning Visible and competes/collaborates in the same early-childhood inquiry space.
Facing History and Ourselves: A Boston-based nonprofit that develops inquiry-based humanities curricula and educator professional development, with global reach. Comparable in offering classroom-ready frameworks plus teacher PD and school-district partnerships, much like PZ.
Learning Forward: Learning Forward (formerly NSDC) is the leading membership organization dedicated to educator professional development standards and practice. Comparable to PZ in its focus on PD frameworks, certification pathways, and convenings for teachers and school leaders.
Edutopia (George Lucas Educational Foundation): Edutopia disseminates K-12 best practices, including project-based and inquiry-based learning, to a global educator audience via media, frameworks, and resources. Like PZ, it operates as a mission-driven PD/content organization with strong brand recognition in educator communities.
National Geographic Society Education: Nat Geo Education provides inquiry-driven curricula, educator resources, and global programs aligned with exploration and observation. Its emphasis on inquiry, observation, and educator PD overlaps with PZ's frameworks such as Slow Looking and The Open Canopy.
Institute for Inquiry: An organization at the Exploratorium focused specifically on inquiry-based teaching and learning for educators. It offers frameworks, resources, and PD in inquiry pedagogy, directly comparable to PZ's Thinking Routines and Visible Thinking work.

Broad incumbents

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE): ISTE is the largest membership organization for educators using technology, with broad PD, certification, and standards work. While PZ focuses on thinking and inquiry frameworks rather than ed-tech, both organizations compete for the same K-12 educator PD budgets and conferences.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Profiles19 records

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

What does Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education do?

Is Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education a public or private company?

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.

When was Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education founded?

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education was founded in 1967. It employs 11 to 50 people.

Where is Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education based?

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is headquartered in Cambridge, United States, in the North America region.

How does Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education make money?

Two revenue lines are on record. Professional Development Fees are the primary driver. The others are grant Funding.

Who are Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's main competitors?

Direct peers on record are PBLWorks (Buck Institute for Education), Exploratorium, EL Education, Fondazione Reggio Children, Facing History and Ourselves, Learning Forward, Edutopia (George Lucas Educational Foundation), National Geographic Society Education and Institute for Inquiry. International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is listed as a broad incumbent.

Does Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education have an API?

No public API is recorded for Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

What industry is Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in?

Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's product category is Education Research and Professional Development. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAJAFAN, Project-Based/Inquiry-Based Learning (School-Delivered), with a secondary code of EDAMAHAD, Innovation & Design Thinking Programs. Its NAICS code is 611710 and its SIC code is 8200.