Institute of Education Sciences Unsolicited Grant Opportunities

The Institute of Education Sciences announces its interest in considering unsolicited applications for research, evaluation, statistics, and dissemination projects that would make significant contributions to the mission of the Institute. The Institute's mission is to conduct and support rigorous education statistics, research, and evaluation in order to provide reliable information about the condition of education, education practices that improve academic achievement, and the effectiveness of federal and other education programs. Unsolicited applications are defined as those that are not eligible for funding under the Institute's current grant competitions. You may be eligible to apply for a NCER or NCSER research program grant, so please check our Funding Opportunities page before submitting a research application to the unsolicited grants competition.

Unsolicited applications are defined as those that are not eligible for funding under the institute's current grant competitions. Among the kinds of unsolicited projects the institute could consider are proposals to conduct innovative research in areas that fall outside the institute's current research priorities (the current research priorities are covered by the institute's regular grant competitions, and are described on the IES website). The institute could also consider proposals that focus on building the capacity of investigators to conduct rigorous research, or of policy-makers to utilize research evidence in decision-making.

In contrast, the institute could not consider an unsolicited application to conduct research on the effectiveness of a mentoring program for teachers because this content was solicited in the institute's competitions for Teacher Quality Research Grants. Potential applicants should be aware that the institute does not provide funds to support program delivery or the provision of services.