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URL resolves to a binary PDF (FY 2025 RFA) — readable content could not be extracted; grant name and program code 84.305T match URL path.
Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants is a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education that funds high-risk, high-reward research projects with the potential to fundamentally change how education science is conducted or understood. The program (ALN 84.
305T) invites applications from universities, nonprofits, and research institutions to pursue innovative and unconventional approaches to education research. Applicants submit through Grants. gov and may receive awards with start dates ranging from July through September of the following fiscal year.
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## Assistance Listing Number (ALN): 84. 305T # Transformative Research in the Education Sciences # Request for Applications Letter of Intent June 6, 2024 https://iesreview. ed.
gov/LOI/LOISubmit Application Package Available May 6, 2024 https://www. grants. gov Application Deadline 11:59:59 Eastern Time on September 12, 2024 Possible Start Dates July 1, 2025 – September 1, 2025 See the companion IES Application Submission Guide ( https://ies.
ed. gov/funding/submission_guide. asp ) for guidance on preparing and submitting applications through Grants.
gov. Table of Contents Part I: Overview and Requirements ....................................................................................................................... 1 A. Purpose of the Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants Program ...................................
1 B. Program Structure .............................................................................................................................................................................. 2 C.
Getting Started ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Technical Assistance for Applicants ...................................................................................................................................
2 2. RFA Organization and the IES Application Submission Guide .......................................................................... 3 3.
Ensuring Your Application is Forwarded for Scientific Peer Review ............................................................... 3 4. Changes to the FY 2025 RFA ................................................................................................................................................
4 Part II: Competition Requirements and Recommendations .................................................................... 6 A. General Requirements .....................................................................................................................................................................
6 1. Eligible Applicants ....................................................................................................................................................................... 6 2.
Project Team .................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 3. Education Outcomes ..................................................................................................................................................................
8 4. Project Narrative and Appendices ...................................................................................................................................... 8 5.
Award Limits .................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 6. Cost Sharing ...................................................................................................................................................................................
8 B. Project Narrative Requirements ................................................................................................................................................. 9 1.
Significance of the Transformative Solution ................................................................................................................. 9 2. Research Approach .....................................................................................................................................................................
9 3. Deliverables and Metrics Plan .............................................................................................................................................. 9 4.
Personnel ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 5. Resources .......................................................................................................................................................................................
10 C. Recommendations for Strong Applications ........................................................................................................................ 10 1.
Significance of the Transformative Solution ............................................................................................................... 10 2. Research Approach ...................................................................................................................................................................
11 3. Deliverables and Metrics Plan ............................................................................................................................................. 12 4.
Personnel ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 5. Resources .......................................................................................................................................................................................
13 Part III: Application Review Criteria .................................................................................................................. 14 A. Scientific Peer Review Process ...................................................................................................................................................
14 B. Review Criteria for the Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants Program ............... 14 1.
Significance of the Transformative Solution ............................................................................................................... 14 2. Research Approach ...................................................................................................................................................................
14 3. Deliverables and Metrics Plan ............................................................................................................................................ 15 4.
Personnel ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 5. Resources .......................................................................................................................................................................................
15 6. Dissemination ............................................................................................................................................................................. 15 Part IV: Preparing Your Application ...................................................................................................................
16 A. Overview ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 16 B.
General Formatting ......................................................................................................................................................................... 16 1. Page and Margin Specifications ..........................................................................................................................................
16 2. Page Numbering ......................................................................................................................................................................... 16 3.
Spacing ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 16 4. Type Size (Font Size) ................................................................................................................................................................
16 5. Citations .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 6.
Graphs, Diagrams, and Tables ............................................................................................................................................ 17 C. Required and Optional Appendices ........................................................................................................................................
17 1. Appendix A: Dissemination History and Plan (Required) ................................................................................... 17 2.
Appendix B: Response to Reviewers (Required for Resubmissions) ............................................................. 18 3. Appendix C: Supplemental Charts, Tables, and Figures and Examples of Technology Materials (Optional) ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
18 4. Appendix D: Letters of Agreement (Required) .......................................................................................................... 19 5.
Appendix E: Data Sharing and Management Plan (Required) .......................................................................... 19 D. Other Narrative Content ...............................................................................................................................................................
21 1. Project Summary ........................................................................................................................................................................ 21 2.
Bibliography and References Cited .................................................................................................................................. 22 3. Human Subjects Narrative ...................................................................................................................................................
22 4. Biographical Sketches for Key Personnel ..................................................................................................................... 23 Part V: Competition Regulations and Application Process ....................................................................
24 A. Funding Mechanisms and Restrictions ................................................................................................................................. 24 1.
Mechanism of Support ............................................................................................................................................................ 24 2. Funding Available .....................................................................................................................................................................
24 3. Special Considerations for Budget Expenses .............................................................................................................. 24 4.
Program Authority .................................................................................................................................................................... 25 5. Applicable Regulations ...........................................................................................................................................................
25 B. Additional Requirements .............................................................................................................................................................. 25 1.
Pre-Award ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 2. Post-Award ...................................................................................................................................................................................
26 C. Overview of Application Process and Award Decisions ................................................................................................ 27 1.
Submitting Your Letter of Intent ....................................................................................................................................... 27 2. Resubmissions and Multiple Submissions ...................................................................................................................
28 3. Application Processing ........................................................................................................................................................... 29 4.
Award Decisions ........................................................................................................................................................................ 29 Part VI: Compliance and Responsiveness Checklist ...................................................................................
30 Part VII: Project Code .................................................................................................................................................. 32 Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 1 # Part I: Overview and Requirements # A.
Purpose of the Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants Program Through its National Center for Education Research (NCER), the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) supports a program of field-initiated research to build knowledge and understanding of education practice and policy. IES was established by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA – P. L.
107-279), in part to improve academic achievement and attainment and access to educational opportunities for all learners (ESRA, § 111. b. 1.
B), with a particular focus on low-performing learners (ESRA, § 115. a. 1) and those lacking access to high-quality educational opportunities (ESRA, § 115.
a. 2. A and 115.
a. 2. B).
In carrying out this mission, we are committed to ensuring that our work is objective, secular, neutral, and nonideological; free of partisan political influence; and free of racial, cultural, gender, or regional bias (ESRA, § 111. b. 2.
B). Congress directed IES to invest in quick-turnaround high-reward, scalable solutions intended to improve education outcomes for all learners in the Explanatory Statement accompanying the fiscal year (FY) 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act ( P. L.
117–328 ). IES's Accelerate, Transform, and Scale (ATS) Initiative was established to fulfill this directive. The ATS Initiative supports education research and development (R&D) to create scalable solutions to improve education outcomes for all learners and eliminate persistent achievement and attainment gaps.
Programs within the ATS Initiative are modeled on the advanced research projects agencies (ARPAs) found throughout the Federal government. ARPAs leverage insights from traditional/basic research to develop and scale breakthrough solutions in focused areas that research or industry do not traditionally support.
As part of the ATS Initiative, NCER invites applications through this Request for Applications (RFA) for research projects that will contribute to its Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants program (ALN 84. 305T).
Through this program, IES seeks to support innovative research that has the potential to make dramatic advances towards solving seemingly intractable problems and challenges in the education field and/or to accelerate the pace of conducting education research to facilitate major breakthroughs.
Transformative research projects are characterized by bold and innovative thinking, interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration, and the potential to lead to high-reward solutions. Both high-quality research approaches and careful considerations of product development are needed to create high-reward, scalable solutions.
There is, however, a potential risk that the innovative research proposed will not be able to be implemented as planned. Therefore, IES expects teams to continually reassess their approaches and progress toward meeting project goals and be prepared to alter their plans to meet their project aims.
In fiscal year (FY) 2025, the Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants program will focus on accelerating learning and reducing persistent education inequities by leveraging evidence-based principles from the learning sciences coupled with advanced technology to create high-reward, scalable technology solutions.
Decades of learning sciences research—the interdisciplinary study of how people learn and how characteristics of the learning environment affect the learning process—have resulted in robust principles for learning that can serve as the basis for creating novel learning experiences. Technology is rapidly advancing, creating new opportunities to explore how it can support learning.
Technology also provides a means to integrate evidence-based principles into the learning process at scale. Through this program, researchers, product developers, and educators will work together to develop a transformative solution to a persistent challenge in education.
The partners will leverage these insights and advances, conduct research to inform the development of a solution, and prepare the solution for scaling by considering issues such as product-market fit, the needs of users, and how variability in local context affects how the solution is implemented.
These projects will be challenging due to the complexities of these partnerships combined with the barriers to adapting advanced technology for use in education. However, by bringing these partners together from the very beginning, there is the potential to create high-reward, scalable technology solutions to persistent challenges in education.
Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 2 All applicants are expected to incorporate the IES Standards for Excellence in Education Research (SEER; https://ies. ed. gov/seer/ ) into their proposed research, as applicable.
SEER encourages rigorous education research that is transparent, actionable, and focused on meaningful outcomes by recommending that researchers: • Make findings, methods, and data open • Address inequities in learners' opportunities, access to resources, and outcomes • Identify interventions' components • Document treatment implementation and contrast • Analyze interventions' costs • Use high-quality outcome measures • Facilitate generalization of study findings • Support scaling of promising interventions NCER’s Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants Program supports research and development that yields outcomes and products that are meaningful and useful to learners and the educators and education institutions that serve them and informs stakeholders about the cost and practical benefits and effects of programs, practices, and policies on relevant outcomes for learners across the lifespan (ESRA, § 112.
1). NCER expects grantees to disseminate evidence in a way that is useful to and accessible by learners, educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public (ESRA, § 112. 2).
To support broad access to research data and study findings, IES grantees must comply with the IES Policy Regarding Public Access to Research ( https://ies. ed. gov/funding/researchaccess.
asp ) and adhere to other open science practices Applicants will propose a set of deliverables and metrics (specified in the Project Narrative) that will enable IES to judge whether the project is on track for achieving its objectives should it be funded.
If the project successfully achieves its objectives, the project team will be eligible to apply for another round of funding for an additional 2-year period, pending availability of funds. Application requirements for the second phase of work will be announced in a separate request for applications. ## 1.
Technical Assistance for Applicants We strongly encourage all applicants to contact NCER program officers during the application planning and preparation process. Applicants may do so at any time via phone or e-mail. Program officers can offer feedback on whether your research idea is a good fit for this or any other IES research grant program and can address more substantive or methodological issues concerning your specific proposal.
IES program officers can work with applicants up until the time the application is submitted to Grants. gov. IES strongly encourages you to submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) on the IES Peer Review website (https://iesreview. ed.
gov/LOI/LOISubmit ). If you do so, a program officer will contact you regarding your proposed project. IES also offers webinars ( https://ies.
ed. gov/funding/webinars/index. asp ) and virtual office hours ( https://ies.
ed. gov/funding/technicalassistance. asp ) for general guidance on grant Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 3 writing and submitting your application and choosing the appropriate competition, topic, and project type.
The program officer for this competition is: Email: Erin. Higgins@ed. gov Telephone: (202) 987-1531 ## 2.
RFA Organization and the IES Application Submission Guide To submit a compliant, responsive, and timely application, you will need to review two documents: 1. This RFA , which provides information on how to prepare an application that is compliant with and responsive to the requirements. Part I provides an overview of this grants program and how to get started with preparing an application.
Part II provides details on application requirements and provides recommendations for what is expected in a strong application. Part III provides information about the review process and review criteria for this competition. Part IV provides information about general formatting and the other narrative content for the application, including required appendices.
Part V provides general information on competition regulations and the review process. Part VI provides a checklist that you can use to ensure you have included all required application elements to advance to scientific peer review. Part VII provides the program and topic code that you will enter in Item 4b of the SF 424 Application for Federal Assistance form.
2. The IES Application Submission Guide (https://ies. ed.
gov/funding/submission_guide. asp ), which provides important information about submission procedures and IES-specific guidance and recommendations to help you ensure your application is complete and received without errors on time through Grants. gov. We strongly recommend that both the principal investigator (PI) and the authorized organization representative (AOR) read both documents, whether submitting a new or revised application.
## 3. Ensuring Your Application is Forwarded for Scientific Peer Review Only compliant and responsive applications received before the date and time deadline are peer reviewed for scientific merit and practical significance. The PI and the AOR should work together to ensure that the application meets these criteria.
## (a) On-time submission • See the separate IES Application Submission Guide (https://ies. ed. gov/funding/submission_guide.
asp ). • Received and validated by Grants. gov no later than 11:59:59 p.
m. Eastern Time on September 12, 2024. • Includes the required project narrative (see Part II ).
• Adheres to all formatting requirements (see Part IV ). • Adheres to all page limit maximums for the project narrative and appendices. IES will remove any pages above the maximum before forwarding an application for scientific peer review.
• Includes all required appendices (see Part IV. C ). Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 4 o Appendix A: Dissemination History and Plan o Appendix B: Response to Reviewers (resubmissions only) o Appendix D: Letters of Agreement o Appendix E: Data Sharing and Management Plan (DSMP) • Meets all competition requirements (see Part II ).
## 4. Changes to the FY 2025 RFA Everyone involved in preparing and submitting an application, whether new or revised, should carefully read all relevant parts of this RFA. Major changes to the Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants Program (ALN 84.
305T) competition in FY 2025 are listed below and described fully in relevant sections of the RFA. • Additional guidance and requirements added for the product development, research, and education agency partnerships. Eligibility criteria to serve as the education agency partner have been clarified.
Additionally, applicants are now required to submit a joint letter documenting the partnership in Appendix D. See Part II. A.
1 for more details. • Multiple project narrative requirements have been revised: o Under Significance of the Transformative Solution, the first requirement now mentions the need to identify the problem-to-be-solved in addition to describing the transformative solution. o Under Research Approach, additional clarity has been added to two of the requirements.
o Under Resources, applicants are now required to name the organizations serving in each of the partnership roles (research, product development, education agency). • Appendix E: Data Sharing and Management Plan (DSMP) required for all applications – beginning in FY 2025, all applicants will be required to include a DSMP in Appendix E that describes how they will manage project data and ultimately share a final research data set.
This includes a requirement to share data reported in a publication immediately upon publication, or to share all data five years after the grant ends, whichever occurs first.
• Updated IES Public Access Policy Requirements o Where to include persistent identifiers (PIDs) for key personnel – while optional at the time of application, all key personnel must have a PID such as an ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID; https://orcid. org/ ) as a condition of award.
If key personnel have a PID at the time of application, include it in the biosketches and in the “Credential, e.g., agency login” field on the Research and Related Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) form in the application package. See the IES Application Submission Guide ( https://ies. ed.
gov/funding/submission_guide. asp ) for more information about this form in the application package. o We have made changes to requirements and recommendations for sharing data and peer-reviewed publications in keeping with the U.S. Department of Education’s approved Public Access Plan posted on February 13, 2024 (https://ies.
ed. gov/funding/researchaccess. asp ).
Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 5 o Updated guidance for data sharing – DSMPs are no longer optional for this program. Applicants to this program must now include a DSMP as part of their application in Appendix E.
Additionally, DSMPs should now include plans for data curation in advance of publication to ensure readiness to share upon publication, and should address whether funds are being budgeted to support data sharing efforts.
To increase public accessibility, we encourage you to designate a public repository for data sharing that is aligned with the characteristics described in the National Science and Technology Council document entitled “Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research” ( https://repository. si. edu/handle/10088/113528 ) whenever feasible.
Housing data on the grantee institution’s website or making data available only by request is not consistent with new public access policies. o Requirement for grantees to submit peer-reviewed publications to the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC; https://eric. ed.
gov/ ) immediately upon acceptance for publication – IES grantees funded under this competition will be required to submit peer-reviewed manuscripts to ERIC (https://eric. ed. gov/submit/ ) immediately upon acceptance for publication and will also be required to share the data described in the paper immediately upon publication.
Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 6 # Part II: Competition Requirements and Recommendations # A. General Requirements Applications must meet these general requirements to be sent forward for scientific peer review. ## 1.
Eligible Applicants Eligible applicants include, but are not limited to, institutions of higher education and non-profit, for-profit, public, or private organizations and entities. Research, product development, and education agency partners must be involved in the project and must be named in the application.
You must submit a joint Letter of Agreement (placed in Appendix D of the application), signed by all partners, documenting the participation and cooperation of all partners, identifying each partner’s role (research, product development, or education agency partner), and clearly setting out each partner’s expected roles and responsibilities in the partnership.
Partners may participate in the project in a number of ways, such as through a subaward, a cost sharing arrangement, and/or through inclusion of key personnel. An organization may serve in multiple partnership roles (e.g., as both the research and product development partner) if it is capable of supporting the project in multiple capacities.
The research partner must be any organization that has the ability and capacity to conduct rigorous research and development. The product development partner must be an organization that has experience developing and scaling products.
Eligible education agency partners must adhere to the following criteria: • State education agencies such as departments, boards, and commissions that oversee early learning, elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and/or adult education. The term state education agencies includes U.S. Territories’ education agencies and tribal education agencies.
• Local educational agencies are primarily public school districts 1 and may also include county or city agencies that have primary responsibility for prekindergarten or adult education. o Intermediate districts (sometimes called service districts) that provide services to multiple districts but do not have decision-making authority over implementing programs and policies cannot serve as the agency partner.
o Applications that include non-public organizations that oversee or administer schools (e.g., certain charter or education management organizations) must also include the state or local education agency with oversight of the schools these non-public organizations manage as an agency partner.
o Individual schools, including those that are recognized as a local educational agency, or groups of schools that do not form a school district are not eligible to apply as the education agency partner. • Community college districts. • State and city postsecondary systems.
> 1As defined in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a local education agency is a public board of education or other public authority legally constituted within a State for either administrative control or direction of, or to perform a service function for, public elementary schools or secondary schools in a city, county, township, school district, or other political subdivision of a State, or for a combination of school districts or counties that is recognized in a State as an administrative agency for its public elementary schools or secondary schools Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 7 o The postsecondary system must apply as the education agency partner.
Individual postsecondary institutions may not apply as the education agency partner. In places where state or local education agencies do not oversee adult education, the adult education providers, defined as eligible providers (e.g., community-based organizations, institutions of higher education, public or non-profit agencies, libraries) by Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA: https://www. gpo.
gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-113publ128/pdf/PLAW- 113publ128. pdf ), can serve as the agency partner. Broadening Participation in the Education Sciences 2: IES is committed to broadening institutional participation in its research grant programs.
IES encourages applications from minority-serving institutions (MSIs) that meet the eligibility criteria for this RFA.
MSIs include Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, American Indian Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Predominantly Black Institutions, and Native American-Serving, Nontribal Institutions.
IES is also encouraging applications from small, woman-owned, and minority-owned businesses that meet the eligibility criteria for this RFA. IES strives to ensure that the researchers we fund are drawn from the entire pool of talented individuals who bring different backgrounds and perspectives to address complex education problems (https://ies. ed.
gov/aboutus/diversity. asp ). Projects of this scope and magnitude demand a team science approach, with a wide variety of individuals with different expertise contributing to the project, including specific familiarity with the learner population that will be addressed, to ensure the research is of high quality.
Team members making substantial contributions to the work should be considered as key personnel, described in the Personnel section of the Project Narrative, and have a biosketch included. The Principal Investigator (PI) is the primary point of contact with IES.
The PI has the authority and responsibility for the proper conduct of the research, including the appropriate use of federal funds and the submission of required scientific progress reports. The PI is designated by the institution submitting the application. Other personnel having authority and responsibility for the research and use of grant funds should be designated as co-Principal Investigators (co-PIs).
Only one PI may be identified as the PI for the purposes of making a grant award, regardless of whether more than one person will share the authority and responsibility for leading and directing the proposed research. The PI and any co-PIs will be listed on the grant award notification (GAN) when a new award is made.
You may identify anyone to serve as a co-PI on a grant, including members of the project team who are at different institutions or those who may be serving as a consultant. Co-Investigators (co-Is) may also be listed on the GAN at the awardee’s discretion. While not required at the time of application, all key personnel must have a persistent identifier (PID), such as an ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID; https://orcid.
org/ ) at the time of award. For all key personnel who have a PID at the time of application, include the PID in the biosketch and in the “Credential, e.g., agency login” field on the Research and Related Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) form in the application package. See the IES Application Submission Guide (https://ies.
ed. gov/funding/submission_guide. asp ) for more information about this form in the application package.
All key personnel must have a PID as a condition of award.
> 2Section 114 of the Education Science Reform Act of 2002 charges IES with undertaking “initiatives and programs to increase the participation of researchers and institutions that have been historically underutilized in Federal education research activities of the Institute, including historically Black colleges or universities or other institutions of higher education with large numbers of minority students.
” Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 8 Your proposed research must address and measure education outcomes of learners at any grade or education level between prekindergarten through postsecondary and adult education that are meaningful for education stakeholders and relevant to IES’ mission.
Applicants should justify and describe why their selected outcome or outcomes are meaningful for education leaders, policymakers, educators, parents, and/or learners. ## 4. Project Narrative and Appendices Project narrative requirements are described in Part II.
B . Information about required and optional appendices can be found in Part IV. C .
The table below provides the maximum award amount and duration for the Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants program. Applicants to this program may not exceed the following limits on award duration and cost per year and should request the actual duration and amount of funding necessary to conduct your proposed scope of work, rather than the maximums allowable by IES.
Maximum Grant Duration Maximum Grant Award 3 years $1,250,000 $3,750,000 In your application, provide a detailed budget justification that explains how the requested costs are allowable, allocable, and reasonable (see 2 CFR 200, Subpart E; https://www. ecfr. gov/current/title- 2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200/subpart-E ) and reflect the proposed scope of work.
See the IES Application Submission Guide ( https://ies. ed. gov/funding/submission_guide.
asp ) for information about completing the SF 424 Research and Related Budget form that is included in the application package available through Grants. gov and for information about what should be included in the budget justification. IES is requiring cost sharing for this program.
Continuation funding in Years 2 and 3 will be contingent upon the establishment of a cost sharing agreement and the inclusion of a revised budget and budget narrative that includes cost sharing funds in the first-year annual report. The cost sharing partner must be an organization that has experience developing and scaling technology products.
This partner may be the same organization as the one identified in the application as the product development partner or an additional organization with experience developing and scaling technology products. If the prime awardee for the project is an organization that has experience developing and scaling technology products, the cost sharing could come from the prime awardee.
Applicants do not need to have the cost sharing commitment in place by the submission date, though they have the option to do so. Instead, by the beginning of Year 2, each grant recipient must secure matching funds in an amount equal to at least 10 percent of the total federal funds provided under the grant in the form of cash or in-kind contributions.
For example, if the grant recipient requests $3,750,000 from IES, an additional $375,000 must be generated in matching funds to support the grant. If the amount of requested federal funds is $1,500,000, an additional $150,000 must be generated in matching funds. Matching funds may be used for any allowable grant expenses.
Unrecovered indirect costs may not be used to meet match requirements. See 2 CFR 200. 306 (https://www.
ecfr. gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200/subpart-D/section-200. 306 ) for more information about cost sharing.
Applicants should discuss their plans to identify a cost sharing Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 9 partner and implement a cost sharing arrangement in the Resources section of the project narrative (see Part II. C. 5 for more details).
# B. Project Narrative Requirements The project narrative must adhere to the formatting guidelines (see Part IV. B ) and be no more than 18 pages.
If the narrative exceeds this page limit, IES will remove any pages after the 18 th page of the narrative. The project narrative must include five sections: Significance of the Transformative Solution, Research Approach, Deliverables and Metrics Plan, Personnel, and Resources.
The five sections of the project narrative must include the content described below to be considered responsive to the requirements of this RFA and forwarded for peer review. Applications lacking this specific content will not be forwarded for peer review. Please see the recommendations section for additional information about what is expected in a strong application.
## 1. Significance of the Transformative Solution The purpose of this section is to provide an overview of the innovative technology solution that will be the focus of the project, the learning sciences research that supports it, and the population of learners for whom it is intended.
• The problem-to-be-solved and the technology solution that will be researched and developed, including the learners it is intended to support and the education outcomes it is proposed to improve. o The technology may be for use at the learner, teacher, K-12 school, institution of higher education (IHE), adult education program, and/or systems level.
The proposed technology may be already developed as long as there are significant revisions or adaptations proposed. • Prior research from the learning sciences–the interdisciplinary study of how people learn and the characteristics of the learning environment that impact the learning process–relevant for the proposed research and development work.
The purpose of this section is to describe your plans for conducting research on and developing the technology solution during the project. • Approach to research on and development of the technology solution. • Plan to measure product-market fit.
• Approach to determining the costs associated with implementing the fully developed technology solution. ## 3. Deliverables and Metrics Plan The purpose of this section is to describe the deliverables and metrics that will be used as evidence that the project is meeting its objectives and has the potential to result in large and meaningful improvements in underserved learners’ education outcomes relevant to IES’ mission.
Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants / Awards Beginning FY 2025 Posted May 6, 2024 / Page 10 • Metrics that will provide evidence that the project is achieving its intended research and development objectives.
The purpose of this section is to demonstrate that your team possesses the appropriate experience for the proposed work, including expertise in development and scaling of technology and in the learning sciences, and will commit enough time to the project. The purpose of this section is to demonstrate how you have the organizational capacity and access to resources needed to execute a project of this size and complexity.
• Describe your resources to conduct the project. • Name the partner organizations/agencies serving in the research partner, product development partner, and education agency roles. See Part II.
A. 1 for more information about eligibility. o An organization may serve in multiple partnership roles (e.g., as both the research and product development partner) if it is capable of supporting the project in multiple capacities.
In addition to naming the partners here, you must also document the partnership by including a letter in Appendix D. See Part IV. B for instructions.
# C. Recommendations for Strong Applications The following recommendations are included to support (1) applicants in writing proposals and (2) reviewers in evaluating proposals that align with IES’ expectations of high-quality research that has
According to the current listing, eligibility includes: Nonprofit research organizations and institutions of higher education partnering with education agencies. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants is funded by Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education. Verify program details on the funder's official page before applying.
Yes — this listing is flagged as national in scope, so applicants across the U.S. may apply, subject to the sponsor's other eligibility criteria.
Start with the full solicitation document linked on this page — it contains the submission instructions and required forms.
The Department of Education's IES SBIR program is one of the most overlooked non-dilutive funding sources for education-technology startups. It funds prototypes at $250K and proven products at $1M with no equity taken. Here is how the FY2026 tracks work, what reviewers reward, and why the June 29 deadline is tighter than it looks.
Read articleThe Institute of Education Sciences has opened its first research competitions since early 2025: five FY27 competitions due October 1, 2026, with roughly $250 million planned across three tranches. But $224 million in withheld FY2025 funds may expire September 30, and topics are now fixed through FY2029.
Read articleThe Institute of Education Sciences launched no new grant competitions in all of FY2026. On August 6, 2026 it announced a three-tranche FY27 restart: five topic-agnostic competitions due October 1, flagship field-initiated grants held until December, and eight research topics that IES says will persist through FY2029.
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