Northwest Media's Research Department is led by Caesar Pacifici, Ph.D., a child psychologist and principal investigator on several of the company's research projects. NWM has been very successful at obtaining National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant awards. These competitive federal grants are awarded to small companies in the U.S. to carry out 'innovative research or research and development (R/R&D) that has potential for commercialization and public benefit.'

With funding provided through SBIR grants, we have developed a number of important interactive multimedia products, mainly in the areas of foster, adoptive, and kinship care and life skills for at-risk teens. Every grant-funded product created by Northwest Media undergoes an evaluation study, using a pretest-posttest research design with random assignment of participants to treatment and control or comparison groups, which allows us to determine the product's effectiveness. In addition, every study assesses participants' satisfaction with the product being evaluated.