By Tom Brock, Commissioner, NCER and
Joan McLaughlin, Commissioner, NCSER
Welcome to Inside IES Research, the official blog for the Institute’s two research centers: the National Center for Education Research (NCER) and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER)!
We are launching the blog to open up a less formal means of communication with the education researcher, policymaker, and practitioner communities. All NCER and NCSER employees will contribute to the blog, and we will have new postings every week. Our goals are to share new research findings, explain our programs and services, and offer researcher perspectives on issues of importance to the education sciences. Among the topics we will address in the near future are the following:
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What we are learning from some of our major research investments on supporting youth with autism, and on improving reading comprehension among students in elementary, middle, and high school.
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Profiles of early career researchers supported by NCER and NCSER, and the contributions they are making to the education sciences.
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How the application review process works and how funding decisions are made.
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What we learned from surveys of NCER and NCSER applicants and grantees, and how we are using this information to make improvements.
We are introducing the blog at a time of peak activity for NCER and NCSER. We are in the final stages of making grant awards from the FY 2015 research and training grants competitions – roughly 150 grants in total – and recently announced our FY 2016 competitions. Future blogs will spotlight some of these new awards and highlight current funding opportunities.
We invite you to check in regularly, and to send your comments to IESResearch@ed.gov.