Note:
Each funding opportunity description is a synopsis of information in the Federal Register application notice.

For specific information about eligibility, please see the official application notice.

The official version of this document is the document published in the Federal Register.

Free

credit:

How's Your Community Doing?
Check Out it's
Community Vital Signs

Internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations is available on GPO Access at:
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html.

Please review the official application notice for pre-application and application requirements, application submission information, performance measures, priorities and program contact information.

Purpose of Program:
The Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program, established under section 4611 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement (as defined in this notice) and attainment for high-need students (as defined in this notice); and rigorously evaluate such innovations.

The EIR program is designed to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and to support the expansion of effective 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.

Applicants proposing innovative projects that are supported by limited evidence can receive relatively small grants to support the development, iteration, and initial evaluation of the practices (as defined in this notice); applicants proposing projects supported by evidence from rigorous evaluations, such as large randomized controlled trials (as defined in this notice), can receive larger grant awards to support expansion across the country.

This structure provides incentives for applicants to:
(1) Explore new ways of addressing persistent challenges that other educators can build on and learn from; (2) build evidence of effectiveness of their practices; and (3) replicate and scale successful practices in new schools, districts, and states while addressing the barriers to scale, such as cost structures and implementation fidelity.

All EIR projects are expected to generate information regarding their effectiveness in order to inform EIR grantees' efforts to learn about and improve upon their efforts, and to help similar, non-EIR efforts across the country benefit from EIR grantees' knowledge.

By requiring that all grantees conduct independent evaluations (as defined in this notice) of their EIR projects, EIR ensures that its funded projects make a significant contribution to improving the quality and quantity of information available to practitioners and policymakers about which practices improve student achievement, for which types of students, and in what contexts.

The Department of Education (Department) awards three types of grants under this program:
``Early-phase'' grants, ``Mid-phase'' grants, and ``Expansion'' grants.

These grants differ in terms of the level of prior evidence of effectiveness required for consideration for funding, the expectations regarding the kind of evidence and information funded projects should produce, the level of scale funded projects should reach, and, consequently, the amount of funding available to support each type of project.

EIR Early-phase grants provide funding to support the development, iteration, implementation, and feasibility testing of practices that are expected to be novel and significant relative to others that are underway nationally.

These Early-phase grants are not intended simply to implement established practices in additional locations or address needs that are unique to one particular context.

The goal is to determine whether and in what ways relatively newer practices can improve student achievement for high-need students.

This notice invites applications for Early-phase grants only.

The notices inviting applications for Mid-phase and Expansion grants are published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register.

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number:
8 4. 411C (Early-phase Grants).

Applications for grants under the EIR Program, CFDA number 8 4. 411C, must be submitted electronically using the Governmentwide Grants.gov Apply site at www.Grants.gov.

Through this site, you will be able to download a copy of the application package, complete it offline, and then upload and submit your application.

You may not email an electronic copy of a grant application to us.

You may access the electronic grant application for EIR Early-phase at www.Grants.gov.

You must search for the downloadable application package for this competition by the CFDA number.

Do not include the CFDA number's alpha suffix in your search (e.g., search for 8 4. 411, not 8 4. 411C).