Research-practice partnerships are collaborative research arrangements that seek to transform the relations among researchers, educators, and communities. There is a wide diversity in partnership forms and research methods used in them. In addition, there remain questions about the value of partnerships, given the time and resources they require to build and maintain. In this introduction to the special topic collection on research-practice partnerships, we provide an overview of how the collection adds to our knowledge of the dynamics and outcomes of such partnerships and identify areas for future study.