PROSPER (PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience) represents a long-lasting collaboration between Iowa State and Penn State universities, where researchers have been investigating how to build networks joining the forces of schools, state extension services, universities, and community members in providing young people and their families with life-skills training.

The PROSPER “platform” focuses on programs that have been scientifically evaluated and shown to reduce adoescent problem behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and drug use. In the fall of 2009, a series of successful trials was rewarded with US federal investment of $7.9m in groundwork to establish PRODSPER as a national “operating system”. That initiative centers on activity at the Iowa Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute (PPSI) directed by Richard Spoth.