March 2020

On March 25, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) announced two competitive funding opportunities for the FY 2021 grant cycle in the Federal Register.

IES will award grants for the Statistical and Research Methodology in Education program to support the development of a wide range of methodological and statistical tools to better enable applied education scientists to conduct rigorous education research. Awards will be available both for Statistical and Research Methodology Grants, with a maximum amount of $900,000, and for Early Career Statistical and Research Methodology Grants, with a maximum amount of $225,000.

The second opportunity, Using Longitudinal Data to Support State Education Policymaking, is directed to encouraging the use of State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) to examine long-term learner outcomes and pathways to provide evidence for state education policymaking. This funding opportunity was proposed by IES Director Mark Schneider in August 2019 as an off-cycle competition The maximum award is $1 million.

Both IES competitions will be released on May 7, with a deadline of July 30 to submit grant applications.