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Our Work

The 10 RELs partner with educators and policymakers to increase the use of research and evidence, enhance education programs, and ultimately, improve student performance. The RELs conduct the majority of their work through sustained partnerships that bring together people with disparate areas of expertise and interest to provide technical support, conduct research, and offer learning opportunities that inform changes to policy and practice in an effort to improve educational outcomes for students. Each REL facilitates several research-practice partnerships, bringing together various stakeholders focused on using research to address high-leverage issues in education. Typically, these topics are also relevant beyond the region.

The RELs work in these partnerships with school districts, state departments of education, and other education stakeholders to conduct three main activities:

Training, Coaching, and Technical Support for Using Evidence (TCTS): TCTS projects are designed to increase the capacity of individuals and/or organizations for creating, accessing, interpreting, or applying research evidence. These activities include extensive, ongoing, and customized support to meet the needs of particular stakeholders. A wide variety of activities fall under this area of work.

Click here to learn more about our technical support work.
Click here to see our research-based tools.
Click here to access our research reference desk service.

Applied Research: RELs collaborate with districts, states, and other education stakeholders to identify high-priority needs and conduct studies that address them, helping stakeholders understand problems, assess implementation progress, and learn what is working. RELs produce publicly available reports that are relevant, clearly written, objective, technically sound, and peer-reviewed.
Click here to see our study reports.
Click here to see our work in progress.
Click here to learn about our peer review process.

Dissemination of Findings: RELs facilitate the broad sharing of research evidence to help education agencies and organizations learn about student needs, innovative programs, implementation challenges for programs or policies, and trends that can inform strategies to improve student outcomes. Dissemination activities include workshops, conference presentations, and webinars on practical applications of research findings. In addition, RELs produce fact sheets, infographics, blogs, and multimedia presentations to make research easily accessible for busy educators and policymakers.
Click here to see our calendar of events.
Click here to see our videos and archived webinars.
Click here to see our infographics.

To learn more about our partnerships:

To learn more about the REL Program, see the About Us page.