2027_84305D.pdf

NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH

Assistance Listing Number (ALN): 84.305D

Statistical and Research Methodology in Education Request for Applications

Letter of Intent September 3, 2026 https://iesreview.ed.gov/LOI/LOISubmit

Application Package Available August 6, 2026 https://www.grants.gov

Application Deadline 11:59:59 Eastern Time on October 1, 2026 https://www.grants.gov

Possible Start Dates July 1, 2027 – September 1, 2027

See the companion IES Application Submission Guide (https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide) for guidance on preparing and submitting applications through Grants.gov.

https://iesreview.ed.gov/LOI/LOISubmit https://www.grants.gov/ https://www.grants.gov/ https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide

Table of Contents Part I: Overview and General Requirements

A. Overview B. Needed Research C. Eligible Applicants D. General Requirements

1.Topics

2. Award Limits

E. Getting Started

1. Technical Assistance for Applicants

2. Building Your Project Team

3. RFA Organization and the IES Application Submission Guide

4. Ensuring Your Application is Forwarded for Scientific Peer Review

F. Changes in the FY 2027 Request for Applications Part II: Topic Requirements and Recommendations

A. Core Grants

1. Purpose

2. Project Narrative Requirements

3. Recommendations for a Strong Application

B. Toolkits, Guidelines, Compendia, Review Papers, and Curated Data Resources Grants

1. Purpose

2. Project Narrative Requirements

3. Recommendations for a Strong Application

Part III: Preparing Your Application A. Overview B. General Formatting

1. Page and Margin Specifications

2. Page Numbering

3. Spacing

4. Font and Type Size (Font Size)

5. Citations

6. Accessibility

C. Required and Optional Appendices

1. Appendix A: Engagement and Dissemination Plan (Required)

2. Appendix B: Response to Reviewers (Required for Resubmissions)

3. Appendix C: Supplemental Materials (Optional)

4. Appendix D: Letters of Agreement (Optional)

5. Appendix E: Data Sharing and Management Plan (Optional)

6. Appendix F: Alignment with SEER Standards

D. Other Narrative Content

1. Project Summary/Abstract

2. Bibliography and References Cited

3. Human Subjects Narrative

4. Biographical Sketches for Key Personnel

Part IV: Competition Regulations and Review Criteria A. Funding Mechanisms and Restrictions

1. Mechanism of Support

2. Funding Available

3. Special Considerations for Budget Expenses

4. Program Authority

5. Applicable Regulations

6. General Terms and Conditions

7. Continuation Awards

B. Additional Requirements

1. Pre-Award

2. Post-Award

C. Overview of Application and Scientific Peer Review Process

1. Submitting Your Letter of Intent

2. Resubmissions and Multiple Submissions

3. Application Processing

4. Scientific Peer Review Process

5. Review Criteria

6. Award Decisions

Part V: Compliance and Responsiveness Checklist Part VI: Program Codes

Posted August 6, 2026 Institute of Education Sciences | 1

Part I: Overview and General Requirements A. Overview The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) provides scientific evidence to improve education practice and policy and shares that evidence in ways that can be used by educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public. 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 its mission, IES must ensure that our work and the work we fund is objective, secular, neutral, and nonideological; free of partisan political influence; and free of racial, cultural, gender, or regional bias (ESRA, § 111.b.2).

Within IES, the National Center for Education Research (NCER) supports a program of field-initiated research to build knowledge and understanding of education practice and policy.

In this Request for Applications (RFA), NCER invites applications for projects that will contribute to its Statistical and Research Methodology in Education (Methods) grants program. For FY 2027, IES is accepting Methods applications under two topics:

• Core Grants

• Toolkits, Guidelines, Compendia, Review Papers, and Curated Data Resources (Toolkits)

The Methods grants program supports the development of a wide range of statistical and methodological products, including new or improved methods, toolkits, guidelines, compendia, review papers, software, and curated data resources, to better enable education scientists to conduct rigorous education research.

Researchers should plan to widely disseminate their products to education researchers working in a variety of institutions, such as public and private colleges and universities; federal, state, and local agencies, and non-profit and for-profit organizations. Researchers should plan to disseminate to any education researchers or others who might benefit from using the products and adapt their dissemination for different uses and users of the product.

IES expects all IES-funded research to implement the Standards for Excellence in Education Research, or SEER (https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/standards-excellence-education-research-seer). The 2027 Standards (SEER 27) are organized into 4 domains.

• Domain 1. Objectivity and Scientific Integrity

• Domain 2. Relevance

• Domain 3. Open Science

• Domain 4. Intervention Research

Each application for IES funding is required to describe how their project is aligned with applicable SEER Standards. Appendix F outlines which Standards are applicable to each type of project.

B. Needed Research There is a wide range of methodological needs in applied education research, and IES depends upon the field to identify and meet those needs. At the same time, IES is interested in applications that propose to develop new and improved methods; toolkits and guidelines to use existing methods; compendia and reviews of available information on existing methods, and curated data resources regarding the following:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education: The rapid development of AI capabilities raises methodological questions about its use in education. Methods are needed to identify biases in AI, including by developing fairness metrics, explainable AI methods, and fairness-constrained models. In addition, methods are needed for causal inference of AI interventions as they are https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/standards-excellence-education-research-seer

Posted August 6, 2026 Institute of Education Sciences | 2 implemented in real-world settings, including but not limited to those that produce personalized treatments for learners.

• Core Components Research: A critical dimension of scaling effective interventions is identifying the core components of those interventions. Research is needed to develop and validate methodological approaches focused on identifying core components and their relative impact on education outcomes in addition to the effects of an intervention as a whole. Guidance is also needed for researchers as to how to document core components consistently across studies.

• New approaches to assessment item parameter estimation with small samples, including Bayesian models and AI-augmented models.

• Alternative approaches to analyzing and modeling NAEP data. These might include:

o Approaches to modeling grade 4 and grade 8 NAEP data to estimate longitudinal change, including within the context of rigorous impact studies to evaluate the impact of programs or policies.

o Bayesian analysis of NAEP data to allow additional or different types of inferences about jurisdiction- or group-level performance, especially for groups/jurisdictions where statistical power is insufficient within the frequentist significance testing frame.

o Analysis and modeling of NAEP data that would allow estimating state achievement in NAEP that reflects both public and private school performance based on existing private school data from NAEP and other NCES surveys and auxiliary data from other data collections including test scores from commercial vendors.

• Curated Data Resources: The volume of data available to education researchers is vast and continually growing. Research is needed to develop curated data resources, and to improve methods for curating them. Curated data resources may support education research in different ways. For example, they may make difficult-to-obtain data widely available, bring together data from multiple sources using a common format, or create variables based on data from multiple sources. For resources available online, search and analysis tools can be added (including dashboards, simple descriptive analyses, or advanced analytic algorithms) that make the resources more efficient and useful.

o Under the Core Grants topic, work is needed to develop the methods to create and curate these resources, such as defining data quality and usability metrics, creating appropriate measurement models, and building iterative workflows for updating data resources in response to new data or user testing.

o Under the Toolkits topic, work is needed to develop and curate datasets (selecting, cleaning, coding, harmonizing, summarizing, and maintaining them using open processes) as well as adding tools to existing datasets, so that researchers, along with policymakers and practitioners, can rely upon them for reference purposes.

• Reviews of the Use of Methods: The development of new methods creates a need to review whether and how these methods are used to conduct rigorous education research. Reviews of a method’s use can identify obstacles and constraints on its use and contribute to its further development as well as to the improvement of toolkits or guidelines supporting its use. There is a need for review papers and compendia that evaluate the adoption of recently developed statistical methods, comparing methodological expectations with observed performance in terms of best practices, technical accuracy, ease of use, and satisfaction of assumptions. The use of AI tools in conducting statistical and evaluation research is also a pressing topic. The field needs guidance on the use of AI tools in research, how they compare to other methods, and leading practices for researchers to document their use of AI.

IES seeks to support the development of new and improved methods, toolkits, guidelines, compendia, reviews, and curated data resources across a wide range of statistical and methodological areas. You are not limited to the ones described above.

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C. Eligible Applicants Institutions that have the ability and capacity to conduct scientific research are eligible to apply. Eligible applicants include, but are not limited to, non-profit and for-profit organizations and public and private agencies and institutions, such as colleges and universities.

D. General Requirements Applications to the Methods grants program must meet these requirements to be sent forward for scientific peer review.

1.Topics Your application must be directed to one of the two Methods topics listed below and meet the requirements set out for each topic as described in Part II to be sent forward for scientific peer review.

The Core Grants topic supports the development of new and improved statistical and research methods for use by education researchers. These methods are to be user tested by education researchers to ensure their usability, revised as needed, then broadly disseminated through different types of products such as articles in applied education journals, detailed working papers and monographs, workshops, software, and curated data resources.

The Toolkits Grants topic supports compiling existing research and information for a given method into products, such as toolkits, guidelines, compendia, review papers, curated data resources, workshops that help education researchers understand and apply the method. These products are to be user tested by education researchers to ensure their usability, revised as needed, and then broadly disseminated.

2. Award Limits Applications to the Methods program must conform to the following limits on award duration and cost by topic. Budgets should reflect the actual time and amount of funding necessary to conduct your proposed scope of work, rather than the maximum allowable by IES.

Topic Maximum Grant Duration Maximum Grant Award

Core Grants 3 years $900,000

Toolkits 2 years $350,000

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.

E. Getting Started

1. Technical Assistance for Applicants IES strongly encourages you to submit a letter of intent on the IES Peer Review website (https://iesreview.ed.gov/LOI/LOISubmit). IES will offer virtual office hours (https://ies.ed.gov/funding/help) for general guidance on grant writing and submitting your application and choosing the appropriate competition and project type.

The program officer for this program is Dr. Emily Weaver (Emily.Weaver@ed.gov).

2. Building Your Project Team The principal investigator (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, and is the primary point of contact with IES. The PI is designated by the institution submitting the https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200/subpart-E https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200/subpart-E https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200/subpart-E https://iesreview.ed.gov/LOI/LOISubmit https://ies.ed.gov/funding/help mailto:Emily.Weaver@ed.gov

Posted August 6, 2026 Institute of Education Sciences | 4 application. Other personnel having authority and responsibility for the research and use of grant funds should be designated as co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs).

3. 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 - to learn how to prepare an application that is compliant and responsive to the requirements. Part I provides an overview of the Methods grant program and sets out the general requirements for your grant application. Part II provides detail on the specific requirements and recommendations for each topic. Part III provides information about general formatting, the appendices, and other narrative content for the application. Part IV provides information on competition regulations and the review process. Part V provides a checklist that you can use to ensure that you have included all required application elements to advance to scientific peer review. Part VI provides the program codes that you must enter in Item 4b of the SF 424 Application for Federal Assistance form.

2. The IES Application Submission Guide (https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide), which provides important information about how to find, complete, and submit an application package in Grants.gov 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 PI and the authorized organization representative (AOR) read both documents, whether submitting a new or revised application.

4. 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. The PI and the AOR should work together to ensure that the application meets these criteria. The Compliance and Responsiveness Checklist in Part V will help you make sure you have the minimum necessary components.

(a) On-time submission

• Received and validated by Grants.gov no later than 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time on October 1,

(b) Compliance

• Includes the required project narrative (see Part II)

• Adheres to all formatting requirements (see Part III)

• Adheres to all page limit maximums for the project narratives and appendices. IES will remove any pages above the maximum before forwarding an application for scientific peer review

• Includes all required appendices (see Part III) o Appendix A: Engagement and Dissemination Plan o Appendix B: Response to Reviewers (Resubmissions only) o Appendix F: Alignment with SEER Standards

(c) Responsiveness o Meets the general requirements for all applications (see Part 1.D) o Meets the project narrative requirements for the selected topic (see Part II)

F. Changes in the FY 2027 Request for Applications 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 Methods grants program for FY 2027 are listed below and described fully in the relevant sections of the RFA.

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• IES updated the needed areas of research and included a call for alternative approaches to analyzing and modeling NAEP data.

• The page limits for the project narrative were reduced from 22 to 15 pages.

• IES added a new required appendix, Alignment with SEER Standards. Appendix F must include information about how the project aligns with the current Standards for Excellence in Education Research (SEER; https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/standards-excellence-education-research-seer).

• IES added guidance on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in preparing grant applications to Part III.A. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the development of grant applications is allowable.

Applicants submitting a grant application must certify on the standard application form to the “true, complete, and accurate” nature of all of the contents of their grant application, regardless of whether it is generated by AI (https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-16571).

• IES added two new pre-award requirements.

o If your application is being considered for funding, IES program officers will review the completeness and acceptability of the information in Appendix F: Alignment with SEER Standards prior to making the new award.

• All recipients of IES research and research training funds are required to be in compliance with the research security requirements described in Part IV prior to receiving IES funding.

https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-16571

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Part II: Topic Requirements and Recommendations For the FY 2027 Methods grant program, you must submit your application to one of the two topics described in this section. You must identify your chosen topic on the SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance form (Item 4b) in the application package using the appropriate code (see Part VI for a list of program codes; for more information on the SF-424 form, see the IES Application Submission Guide at https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide).

The topics differ by the type of work to be done, maximum funding amount, and maximum duration. Both topics support the development of statistical and methodological products that can be used by education researchers to improve the research that IES supports (https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs).

For each topic, refer to the following:

• The Purpose section for the types of research supported.

• The Project Narrative Requirements section for the specific content that you must address in the project narrative to be sent forward for scientific peer review.

• The Recommendations for a Strong Application section for recommendations to improve the quality of your application. The recommendations are included to support (1) applicants in writing proposals and (2) reviewers in evaluating proposals that align with IES’s expectations of high-quality research that has scientific merit and practical significance. IES asks reviewers to use these recommendations, in conjunction with their professional judgment and expertise, to determine application quality.

The Methods program has a page on the IES website (https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs/statistical-and-research-methodology-in-education) where you can view the abstracts of previously funded projects.

https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs https://ies.ed.gov/funding/research/programs/statistical-and-research-methodology-in-education

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A. Core Grants

1. Purpose IES established the Core Grants topic to support the development of new or improved statistical and research methods to advance the education sciences. In addition to developing methods, applicants are required to describe how they will conduct end-user testing to determine whether education researchers can use them and to make revisions in response to feedback if needed. Applicants are also required to discuss how they will engage with potential users in the design and development of the methods and products and disseminate them to a wide range of education researchers and other potential users through different types of products such as articles in applied education journals, detailed working papers and monographs, workshops, software, and curated data resources.

2. Project Narrative Requirements The project narrative must include four sections – Significance, Research Plan, Personnel, and Resources.

The four sections must include the content described below to be considered responsive to the requirements of this RFA. Applications lacking this specific content will not be forwarded for peer review.

The project narrative must adhere to the formatting guidelines (see Part III.B) and be no more than 15 pages. If the narrative exceeds the page limit, IES will remove any pages after the 15th page of the narrative.

See the Recommendations for a Strong Application for recommendations to improve the quality of your application. The recommendations are included to support (1) applicants in writing proposals and (2) reviewers in evaluating proposals that align with IES’s expectations of high-quality research that has scientific merit and practical significance. IES asks reviewers to use these recommendations, in conjunction with their professional judgment and expertise, to determine application quality.

(a) Significance The purpose of this section is to describe your research aims while providing a compelling rationale for the development of a new or improved method.

You must describe

• The statistical and/or research method you will develop or improve

• How the method will help solve practical problems encountered by education researchers

• How education researchers will obtain and use the method

(b) Research Plan The purpose of this section is to describe how you will develop and test the proposed method, as well as check its usability by education researchers.

You must describe your plans and methods for

• Developing the proposed method

• Determining that the method works as intended

• Determining that education researchers can use the method

(c) Personnel The purpose of this section is to describe the relevant expertise and experience, responsibilities, and time commitments of the PI and any other key personnel.

You must describe

• The project team

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(d) Resources The purpose of this section is to describe the institutions involved in the research and their capacity and access to resources needed to execute a project of this size and complexity and to appropriately engage with potential users of your method and products and disseminate the products to a range of audiences.

You must describe

• The research infrastructure and capacity to conduct the project

3. Recommendations for a Strong Application IES provides these recommendations to improve the quality of your application. The recommendations are included to support (1) applicants in writing proposals and (2) reviewers in evaluating proposals that align with IES’s expectations of high-quality research that has scientific merit and practical significance.

IES asks reviewers to use these recommendations, in conjunction with their professional judgment and expertise, to determine application quality.

(a) Significance Describe the specific statistical or methodological issue or problem that your work addresses.

Discuss the overall importance of this issue/problem to the improvement of applied education research, the overall importance of its solution, and its relevance to the type of education research IES funds.

Describe current methods used to address this issue or problem and explain why current practice is not satisfactory. This description should focus on practice within the education sciences rather than a more general discussion of statistical or social science research practice.

Describe the new or improved method you propose to develop. Contrast this with current typical practice and its identified shortcomings. A detailed description will show how your new or improved method has the potential to produce substantially more accurate and/or more usable research results because (a) it is sufficiently different from current practice that it does not suffer from the same shortcomings; (b) there are theoretical and empirical justifications for expecting it to function as planned; (c) it will be easier or more efficient for education researchers to use.

Describe what products will be developed that will allow education researchers to make use of the new or improved method (e.g., an article written for education researchers, software).

Discuss how the product(s) will be used by education researchers to improve the designs of their studies, analyses of their data, and/or interpretations of their findings.

If you propose to further develop a method from a previous project, justify the need for another award, and describe the results and outcomes of your prior or currently held awards that contributed to the development of the method.

In Appendix A, describe how you will engage with potential users of the proposed statistical and methodological products in the design and development of your products, disseminate the products to a wide range of education researchers and other potential users in a variety of sectors (academia, government, non- and for-profit), and prior successes in disseminating the findings and products from your work.

(b) Research Plan Explain the major activities and sequence of steps you will follow to develop the method and product(s). If you are building on a method or product that is currently available, be clear about what you are changing or enhancing.

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Describe any theoretical developments (for example, distributional and estimator derivations) that you will need to do as the first stage of your method development. Describe the underlying methods in the current literature, the supporting assumptions, and the desired endpoint (a new estimator, distribution of test statistic, bounds, fit index, etc.).

If you propose to collect data, you should describe the sample (including criteria for inclusion/exclusion), measures (including evidence of reliability and validity for the specified use), what population the sample represents, and procedures proposed for the data collection. You should also provide documentation in Appendix D to assure reviewers that you already have access to the settings where data will be collected or that access can be obtained, and the project can be carried out in a timely fashion.

If you propose secondary data analyses, you should provide information on sampling design, sample characteristics, variables to be used, and the structure of any dataset to be used. If possible, you should select datasets from education research or measurement for these analyses. The dataset should be described in enough detail, including its appropriateness for addressing the statistical or methodological issue described in your Significance section, to allow reviewers to judge whether the proposed analyses can be conducted with them. If multiple datasets will be linked to conduct analyses, reviewers must be able to judge the feasibility of the linking plan. You should also provide sufficient documentation in Appendix D to assure reviewers that you have access to the data or that access can be obtained, and the project can be carried out in a timely fashion.

Your data analytic plan should have sufficient detail to permit reviewers to judge the appropriateness and adequacy of the plan for addressing, as applicable, the hypotheses or research questions. You should include an explicit discussion of how any missing data will be handled within the statistical analyses.

If you propose to conduct a simulation study, the procedure should be described at the level of detail typically found in the Methods section of a research manuscript, including a description of the variables to be manipulated, a description of the outcome(s) of interest, and as applicable, criteria for determining whether outcomes such as biases or differences between parameter estimates are consequential. You should describe the data generation process, including the sample size(s), the values of relevant fixed parameters, the values that will be used for parameters that are varied in the simulation study, and the software package that will be used to generate the data.

As you describe the end-user testing to determine whether education researchers can successfully use the method and product(s), you should identify the setting where testing will be done and the researchers who will carry out the test. For example, colleagues might use the method in their own research, students could use the method in a course you teach, state or local education personnel might try to apply the method with their administrative data. You should also make clear how you will judge successful use of the method and product(s) among different types of users and how feedback from this process will be used to revise them, referring to best practices from user experience design or human-computer interaction research, if applicable. You should also identify how you will ensure that the latest versions of your product(s) will remain available to education researchers. Non-published technical reports, working papers, and guidelines should be placed in preprint repositories (such as institution-specific, Open Science Framework, EdArXiv) and software hosts should be identified (e.g., GitHub, CRAN) along with how you will manage dependencies (i.e., as an R package, dockerfile, requirements.txt).

(c) Personnel Strong applications will demonstrate that the project team possess the appropriate skills and qualifications to carry out the proposed research project, that the principal investigator and other key personnel possess the appropriate training and experience for their roles and responsibilities, and that they will commit sufficient time to competently implement the proposed research.

Identify and briefly describe the relevant background and expertise of all key personnel, including the PI, Co-PIs, Co- Investigators, and any consultants on the project team regardless of whether they are located at the primary applicant institution or a subaward institution.

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Include the following:

• Roles and responsibilities of key personnel on the project

• Provide the proportion of time personnel will devote to the project, expressed as percent effort over a 12-month calendar year

• Note personnel with experience in producing similar methods products

• Identify previous success at disseminating research findings and products to education researchers

If you have previously received a Methods grant award, you should indicate the results of your past work, its dissemination, and its use by education researchers. Discuss how the collective research expertise and experience of your team align with and support the content and methodological focus of your proposed Methods project.

(d) Resources Strong applications will demonstrate that there are sufficient research infrastructure and institutional capacity to carry out the proposed research and that the commitments of each partner show support for the implementation and success of the project.

You should not rely on your institution’s overall reputation. Instead, describe the specific research infrastructure and capacity to conduct the proposed project at both the primary applicant institution and any subaward institutions, including the following:

• Your institution’s capacity to manage a grant of this size.

• Your current access to resources available at the primary institution and any subaward institutions

• Your plan for acquiring any resources that are not currently accessible, will require significant expenditures, and/or are necessary for the successful completion of the project, such as equipment, server/cloud computing time, test materials, curriculum, or training materials.

• Your access to education researchers to user-test the method and product(s). For example, identify education researchers willing to try them in their work or in their courses in which students will use and critique it.

• Your access to specific offices and organizations that will support your Engagement and Dissemination Plan (Appendix A) and Data Sharing and Management Plan (Appendix E), if applicable).

• Your access to settings, data sets, and digital platforms necessary for the proposed research.

Include letters of agreement, data licenses, or existing memoranda of understanding in Appendix D documenting this access. Convincing letters convey that the organizations understand what their participation in the study will involve, such as annual surveys, assessments, and/or classroom observations. Include information about incentives for participation, if applicable.

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B. Toolkits, Guidelines, Compendia, Review Papers, and Curated Data Resources Grants

1. Purpose IES established the Toolkits Grants topic to support developing products that bring together the existing research and information available on a specific method or existing data (sometimes with tools to use it) for use by education researchers in their own research. These products can include toolkits, guidelines, compendia, review papers, and curated data resources. Applicants are required to describe how they will conduct end-user testing to determine whether education researchers can use the products and to make revisions in response to feedback if needed. Applicants are also required to discuss how they will disseminate the products and make them widely available to education researchers.

2. Project Narrative Requirements The project narrative must include four sections – Significance, Research Plan, Personnel, and Resources.

The four sections must include the content described below to be considered responsive to the requirements of this RFA. Applications lacking this specific content will not be forwarded for peer review.

The project narrative must adhere to the formatting guidelines (see Part III.B) and be no more than 15 pages. If the narrative exceeds the page limit, IES will remove any pages after the 15th page of the narrative.

See the Recommendations for a Strong Application for recommendations to improve the quality of your application. The recommendations are included to support (1) applicants in writing proposals and (2) reviewers in evaluating proposals that align with IES’s expectations of high-quality research that has scientific merit and practical significance. IES asks reviewers to use these recommendations, in conjunction with their professional judgment and expertise, to determine application quality.

(a) Significance The purpose of this section is to describe your research aims while providing a compelling rationale for the development of a product that brings together the available research and information on a method.

You must describe

• The toolkit, guidelines, compendia, review paper, and/or curated data resource you will develop

• How the product(s) will help solve practical problems encountered by education researchers

• How education researchers will obtain and use the product(s)

(b) Research Plan The purpose of this section is to describe how you will develop and test the proposed statistical and/or methodological product(s) as well as check its usability by education researchers.

You must describe your plans and methods for

• Developing the proposed toolkit, guidelines, compendia, review paper, and/or curated data resource

• Determining that the product(s) works as intended

• Determining that education researchers can use the product(s)

(c) Personnel The purpose of this section is to describe the relevant expertise and experience, responsibilities, and time commitments of the PI and any other key personnel.

You must describe

• The project team

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(d) Resources The purpose of this section is to describe the institutions involved in the research and their capacity and access to resources needed to execute a project of this size and complexity and to appropriately engage with potential users of your product and disseminate the products to a range of audiences.

You must describe

• The research infrastructure and capacity to conduct the project

3. Recommendations for a Strong Application IES provides these recommendations to improve the quality of your application. The recommendations are included to support (1) applicants in writing proposals and (2) reviewers in evaluating proposals that align with IES’s expectations of high-quality research that has scientific merit and practical significance.

IES asks reviewers to use these recommendations, in conjunction with their professional judgment and expertise, to determine application quality.

(a) Significance Describe the product(s) you intend to develop (e.g., toolkits, guidelines, compendia, review papers, curated data resources). Describe the specific method or data that your product will assist education researchers use of.

Discuss how the product(s) will be used by education researchers to improve the designs of their studies, analyses of their data, and/or interpretations of their findings. For example, a toolkit could assist an applied education researcher to correctly implement a method in their work and accurately describe its use in the write up of their findings.

Justify why this product is needed to improve education research. Your justification might include recent changes in the existing available research, the availability and quality of similar products now available, and the current state of practice among education researchers. Show that your product(s) have the potential to produce substantially more accurate and/or more usable research results than current practice.

In Appendix A, describe how you will engage with potential users of the proposed statistical and methodological products in the design and development of your products, disseminate the products to a wide range of education researchers and other potential users in a variety of sectors (academia, government, non- and for-profit), and prior successes in disseminating the findings and products from your work.

(b) Research Plan Explain the major activities and sequence of steps you will follow to develop the product(s). If you are building on a product that is currently available, be clear about what you are changing or enhancing.

Identify the currently available research or other information that you will be drawing upon to develop your product.

Describe in detail how you will develop your product (the toolkit, guidelines, compendium, review paper and/or curated data resource). Make clear how you will gather the available information on the method or data addressed by the product, decide which information to include in your product, develop the product so that it accurately reflects the current state of knowledge about the method or data, and develop the product to be usable by education researchers.

Should you need to do any data collection or analysis as part of the development of your product, describe the data needed, how they will be obtained, and the analyses to be done.

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Should you need to hold consensus or advisory panels for the development of your product, describe who will be represented on those panels (include letters of agreement if possible, in Appendix D), how the panels will function, and how decisions will be made.

As you describe the end-user testing to determine whether education researchers can successfully use the product(s), you should identify the setting(s) where testing will be done and the researchers who will carry out the test. For example, colleagues might use the product in their own research, students could use the product in a course you teach, state or local education personnel might try to apply the product with their administrative data. You should also make clear how you will judge successful use of the product(s) among different types of users and how feedback from this process will be used to revise the product, referring to best practices from user experience design or human-computer interaction research, if applicable. You should also identify how you will ensure that the latest versions of your product(s) will remain available to education researchers. Non-published technical reports, working papers, and guidelines can be placed in preprint repositories (such as institution-specific, Open Science Framework, EdArXiv) and software hosts should be identified (e.g., GitHub, CRAN) along with how you will manage dependencies (i.e., as an R package, dockerfile, requirements.txt).

(c) Personnel Strong applications will demonstrate that the project team possess the appropriate skills and qualifications to carry out the proposed research project, that the principal investigator and other key personnel possess the appropriate training and experience for their roles and responsibilities, and that they will commit sufficient time to competently implement the proposed research.

In its research grant programs, IES is strongly committed to broadening participation, including personnel from underrepresented communities and diverse institutions.

Identify and briefly describe the relevant background and expertise of all key personnel, including the PI, Co-PIs, Co- Investigators, and any consultants on the project team regardless of whether they are located at the primary applicant institution or a subaward institution.

Include the following:

• Roles and responsibilities of key personnel on the project

• Provide the proportion of time personnel will devote to the project, expressed as percent effort over a 12-month calendar year

• Note personnel with experience in producing similar methods products

• Identify previous success at disseminating research findings and products to education researchers

If you have previously received a Methods grant award, you should indicate the results of your past work, its dissemination, and its use by education researchers. Discuss how the collective research expertise and experience of your team align with and support the content and methodological focus of your proposed Methods project.

(d) Resources Strong applications will demonstrate that there are sufficient research infrastructure and institutional capacity to carry out the proposed research and that the commitments of each partner show support for the implementation and success of the project.

You should not rely on your institution’s overall reputation. Instead, describe the research infrastructure and capacity to conduct the proposed project at both the primary applicant institution and any subaward institutions, including the following:

• Your institution’s capacity to manage a grant of this size.

• Your current access to resources available at the primary institution and any subaward institutions.

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• Your plan for acquiring any resources that are not currently accessible, will require significant expenditures, and/or are necessary for the successful completion of the project, such as equipment, server/cloud computing time, test materials, curriculum, or training materials.

• Your access to education researchers to user-test the method and product(s). For example, identify education researchers willing to try them in their work or in their courses in which students would use and critique them.

• Your access to specific offices and organizations that will support your Engagement and Dissemination Plan (Appendix A) and Data Sharing and Management Plan (Appendix E), if applicable).

• Access to settings, data sets, and digital platforms necessary for the proposed research. Include letters of agreement, data licenses, or existing memoranda of understanding in Appendix D documenting this access. Convincing letters convey that the organizations understand what their participation in the study will involve, such as annual surveys, assessments, and/or classroom observations. Include information about incentives for participation, if applicable.

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Part III: Preparing Your Application A. Overview The application contents—individual forms and their PDF attachments—represent the body of an application to IES. Read the IES Application Submission Guide (https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide) for additional information about how to find, complete, and submit an application package through Grants.gov (https://grants.gov).

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the development of grant applications is allowable. Applicants submitting a grant application must certify on the standard application form to the “true, complete, and accurate” nature of all of the contents of their grant application, regardless of whether it is generated by AI (https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-16571).

B. General Formatting To ensure that reviewers can read your applications and that all applicants have similar expectations for length and space, IES specifies the following formatting conventions. Adherence to type size and line spacing requirements is necessary so that no applicant will have an unfair advantage by using small type or by providing more text in their applications. These requirements apply to the PDF file as submitted, unless otherwise specified. For an application to be compliant and sent forward for review, the applicant should ensure that each narrative section follows both the page limit maximums and the formatting guidelines below unless otherwise specified.

1. Page and Margin Specifications For all IES grant applications, a “page” is 8.5 in. x 11 in. on one side only with 1-inch margins at the top, bottom, and both sides.

2. Page Numbering Add page numbers using the header or footer function and place them at the bottom or upper right corner for ease of reading.

3. Spacing Text must be single spaced.

4. Font and Type Size (Font Size) Use a font that is 12-point.

Use one of the following fonts: Times New Roman, Courier, Courier New, or Arial.

5. Citations Use the parenthetical author-date style for citations (for example, the American Psychological Association, 2009) rather than numeric citations that correspond to the reference list.

6. Accessibility Meet or exceed standards for accessibility (including alternative texts for charts, figures, and graphs) in compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. For assistance with 508 compliance, please visit https://www.section508.gov/create/.

C. Required and Optional Appendices The required project narrative (Significance, Research Plan, Personnel, Resources) is followed by several appendices. Some of these appendices are required and some are optional. When you submit your https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide https://grants.gov/ https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-16571 https://www.section508.gov/create/

Posted August 6, 2026 Institute of Education Sciences | 16 application through Grants.gov, you will create a single PDF file that contains the project narrative and all appendices and include it as an attachment in the application package.

Include appendices in alphabetical order and simply skip an appendix if it is not required for your application or if you choose not to include an optional appendix. See the IES Application Submission Guide (https://ies.ed.gov/application-submission-guide) for more information about preparing and submitting your application using the required application package for this competition through Grants.gov (https://www.grants.gov/).

The project narrative and appendices are critical parts of the IES application because they include the substantive content that peer reviewers will evaluate for practical significance and scientific merit.

1. Appendix A: Engagement and Dissemination Plan (Required) You must include Appendix A after the project narrative. Appendix A must meet the general formatting guidelines and be no more than three pages. If Appendix A exceeds this three-page limit, IES will remove any pages after the 3rd page of the appendix before it is forwarded for scientific peer review.

Your Engagement and Dissemination plan is intended to demonstrate (1) how your proposed research reflects engagement with relevant education researchers and other potential users of statistical and research methods and products throughout the research process, including in the development…