Accelerate, Transform, Scale Initiative: IES's Strategy for Bringing Bold, Innovative Ideas to Education at Scale

In the Explanatory Statement accompanying the fiscal year (FY) 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 117–328), Congress directed IES to invest in quick-turnaround high-reward, scalable solutions intended to improve education outcomes for all students. To fulfill this directive, IES's Accelerate, Transform, and Scale (ATS) initiative was established. The ATS Initiative supports advanced education research and development (R&D) to create scalable solutions to improve education outcomes for all learners and eliminate persistent achievement and attainment gaps. The ATS Initiative is inspired by the advanced research projects agencies (ARPAs) found throughout the Federal government. ARPAs leverage insights from traditional/basic research to develop and scale breakthrough solutions and capabilities in focused areas that research or industry do not traditionally support. Through this initiative, IES is investing in bold, innovative ideas that come from interdisciplinary, diverse teams that have the potential to make dramatic advances towards solving seemingly intractable problems and challenges in the education field.

Research Programs

Education Research and Development Centers: Using Generative Artificial Intelligence to Augment Teaching and Learning in Classrooms (U-GAIN)

The U-GAIN Research and Development (R&D) Centers are conducting high-reward, scalable research and providing national leadership on how the use of generative artificial intelligence can make meaningful contributions to improve education processes and outcomes.

Transformative Research in the Education Sciences Grants Program

This program supports innovative research that has the potential to make dramatic advances towards solving seemingly intractable problems and challenges in the education field and/or to accelerate the pace of conducting education research to facilitate major breakthroughs.

Read More Transformative Research in the Education Sciences

SEERNet (also known as the Digital Learning Platforms to Enable Efficient Education Research Network)

The intent of this network is to leverage existing, widely used digital learning platforms (DLPs) to accelerate the research enterprise and make it easier to conduct replications to identify what works for whom under what conditions.

Leveraging Evidence to Accelerate Recovery Nationwide (LEARN) Research Network

The LEARN Network is focused on adapting and preparing to scale existing, evidence-based products that have the potential to accelerate students' learning for the many learners enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12 whose learning was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

From Seedlings to Scale (S2S) Program

IES is considering a three-phase investment strategy for S2S to support transformative ideas as they grow from seedlings to scalable solutions. As proposed, S2S would focus on high quality research, robust product development, and sustainability and scaling in the education marketplace.

Read More From Seedlings to Scale Grants Program

News and Updates

Accelerating Research on Generative Artificial Intelligence: IES Announces Four New Research & Development Centers

(Inside IES Research Blog, September 17, 2024)

IES Makes Three New Awards to Accelerate Breakthroughs in the Education Field

(Inside IES Research blog, January 31, 2024)

Help Us Grow Seedlings

(Blog from IES Director Mark Schneider, January 23, 2024)

How the Institute of Education Sciences is Supporting Evidence Building for Artificial Intelligence in Education

(IES guest blog for the Office of Ed Tech’s AI blog series, January 18, 2024)

The Path Forward for NCADE, Part I

(Blog from IES Director Mark Schneider, November 28, 2023)

What's on tap at IES for the next year?

(Blog from IES Director Mark Schneider, April 19, 2023)

Innovation in the Education Sciences (the new IES)

(Blog from IES Director Mark Schneider, February 2, 2023)

Using Prize Competitions to Revamp IES' R&D Infrastructure

(Blog from IES Director Mark Schneider, June 2, 2022)