Deadline: 5 June 2018

Department of Education has announced Notice of Funding for the “Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII)/Education Innovation and Research Program: Early-phase Grants” to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and to support the expansion of those solutions to serve substantially larger numbers of students.

The central design element of the EIR program is its multi-tier structure that links the amount of funding that an applicant may receive to the quality of the evidence supporting the efficacy of the proposed project, with the expectation that projects that build this evidence will advance through EIR’s grant tiers:

• Early-phase
• Mid-phase
• Expansion

Applicants proposing innovative practices that are supported by limited evidence can receive relatively small grants to support the development, implementation, and initial evaluation of the practices; applicants proposing practices supported by evidence from rigorous evaluations can receive larger grant awards to support expansion across the country. This structure provides incentives for applicants to:

• Explore new ways of addressing persistent challenges that other educators can build on and learn from;
• Build evidence of effectiveness of their practices;
• Replicate and scale successful practices in new schools, districts, and States while addressing the barriers to scale, such as cost structures and implementation fidelity.

The Education Innovation and Research (EIR) program, established under section 4611 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended (ESEA), provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students; and rigorously evaluate such innovations.

Funding Information

• Estimated Total Program Funding: $115,000,000
• Award Ceiling: $4,000,000

Eligibility Criteria

• State governments
• For profit organizations other than small businesses
• Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
• Private institutions of higher education
• Small businesses
• Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
• County governments
• Special district governments
• Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
• City or township governments
• An LEA;
• An SEA;
• The Bureau of Indian Education;
• A consortium of SEAs or LEAs;
• A nonprofit organization;
• The Bureau of Indian Education, in partnership with:
  • A nonprofit organization;
  • A business;
  • An educational service agency;
  • An institution of higher education
• To qualify as a rural applicant under the EIR program, an applicant must meet both of the following requirements. The applicant is:
  • An LEA with an urban-centric district locale code of 32, 33, 41, 42, or 43, as determined by the Secretary;
  • A consortium of such LEAs;
  • An educational service agency or a nonprofit organization in partnership with such an LEA;
  • A grantee described in partnership with an SEA;
  • A majority of the schools to be served by the program are designated with a locale code of 32, 33, 41, 42, or 43, or a combination of such codes, as determined by the Secretary.
• Applicants are encouraged to retrieve locale codes from the National Center for Education Statistics School District search tool.

How to Apply

Applicants can apply via given website.