coe-staff: GRANT MATTERS Update: IES Announces Plans for FY 2014 Competitions

[Linda Lewis]

The Institute of Education Sciences grant application announcement for 
FY 2014 will be published in the April 23, 2013 Federal Register (a link 
to it will be sent out when the notice is published).The good news is 
that the National Center for Education Research (NCER) will hold grant 
competitions in FY 2014, with a due date for applications of September 
4, 2013.But first the bad news.

*
NATIONAL CENTER FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION RESEARCH*

The news for the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) 
is nothing short of disastrous:no grant competitions will be held in FY 
2014.

A draft of IES grant announcement appearing in today's advance notice 
from the Office of the Federal Register confirms how bad the fiscal 
situation for NCSER is.Because of a nearly 30% cut in funding for NCSER 
over the last three years, coupled with the recent sequester and the IES 
practice in FY 2009-2011 of forward funding the total costs of many 
grants in their initial year, NCSER has relatively little money for new 
awards in FY 2013 (the current year), and expects to have relatively 
little money for new awards in FY 2014.As a result, IES will not hold 
any research competitions for FY 2014 funding under the NCSER program. 
Instead, it will spend what funds it has for new awards in FY 2014 to 
"fund down" the slate of high quality FY 2013 applications that have 
already been reviewed but are not receiving grant awards with FY 2013 
funding.

According to the Federal Register notice, NCSER expects to fund only 13 
new research grants this year (FY 2013) from those applications 
submitted to the FY 2013 competitions (compared to the 45+ awards made 
in FY 2012).Next year (FY 2014), from highly ranked but unfunded 
applications submitted for FY 2013, NCSER will select its new grant 
awards under the Special Education Research Grants Program and the 
Accelerating the Academic Achievement of Students with Learning 
Disabilities Research Initiative.How many will be funded will not be 
known until Congress completes actions on the NCSER appropriation for FY 
2014.The President has requested a $10 million increase in NCSER funding 
for FY 2014 which, if implemented, would increase available funds for 
new awards in FY 2014 and, thus, enable IES to fund further down the slate.

It's of little comfort, but by FY 2015 IES expects to have its funding 
cycle issues under better control.We anticipate the agency will be 
apportioning their resources as generally expected from then on:20-30% 
of available funds for new awards each year, and the remainder for 
continuation costs of grants awarded in previous years.

**

*NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH*

The National Center on Education Research has set September 4, 2013 as 
the deadline for applications for the five competitions it will hold for 
FY 2014 funding. Unlike past years, there will be no June deadline for 
NCER applications this year.The RFAs for the NCER competitions will be 
available on June 6, 2013.The NCER competitions and the specific topics 
that may be addressed in applications to those competitions are the 
following.

*Education Research Competition*

NCER will consider only applications that address one of the following 
education research topics:

·Cognition and Student Learning

·Early Learning Programs and Policies

·Education Technology

·Effective Teachers and Effective Teaching

·English Learners

·Improving Education Systems: Policies, Organization, Management, and 
Leadership

·Mathematics and Science Education

·Postsecondary and Adult Education

·Reading and Writing

·Social and Behavioral Context for Academic Learning

*Education Research Training Competition*

NCER will consider only applications that address one of the following 
three topics:

·Pre-doctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training

·Methods Training for Education Researchers

·Training in Education Research Use and Practice

*Education Research and Development Centers Competition*

NCER will consider only applications that address one of the following 
two topics:

·Developmental Education Assessment and Instruction

·Knowledge Utilization

*Statistical and Research Methodology in Education Competition*

NCER will consider only applications that address one of the following 
two topics:

·Statistical and Research Methodology Grants

·Early Career Statistical and Research Methodology Grants

*Partnerships and Collaborations Focused on Problems of Practice or 
Policy Competition*

NCER will consider only applications that address one of the following 
three topics:

·Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships in Education Research

·Continuous Improvement in Education Research

·Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies

-- 
Linda Lewis
Office of Associate Dean for Research and Outreach
College of Education, Lokey 207
1215 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1215
541-346-1394
lmlewis at uoregon.edu

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists-prod.uoregon.edu/mailman/private/coe-staff/attachments/20130422/49659608/attachment-0001.html>