CFP: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10586/nsf10586.htm
Deadline: 11/25/2010
Awards: Up to $29M total funding available in different amounts in different categories
The REESE program seeks to advance research at the frontiers of STEM learning, education, and evaluation, and to provide the foundational knowledge necessary to improve STEM teaching and learning at all educational levels and in all settings. The goals of the REESE program are (1) to catalyze discovery and innovation at the frontiers of STEM learning, education, and evaluation; (2) to stimulate the field to produce high quality and robust research results through the progress of theory, method, and human resources; and (3) to coordinate and transform advances in education, learning research, and evaluation. REESE pursues its mission by developing an interdisciplinary research portfolio focusing on core scientific questions about STEM learning in current and emerging learning contexts, both formal and informal, from childhood through adulthood, and from before school through to graduate school and beyond into the workforce. REESE places particular importance upon the involvement of young investigators in the projects, at doctoral, postdoctoral, and early career stages, as well as the involvement of STEM disciplinary experts. In addition, research questions related to educational research methodology and evaluation are central to the REESE activity.
This solicitation calls for four types of proposals: Pathways, Synthesis, Empirical Research, and Large Empirical Research. The proposal type and its research strand(s) should be specified in the first sentence of the project summary. It is not necessary to include the proposal type or research strand into the project title (as was required by previous REESE solicitations).
1. Pathways Projects – Pathways projects are small-scale studies that include proof-of-concept and feasibility studies-work that is on a path toward a major project (i.e., Synthesis, Empirical, or Large Scale Empirical) but requires that empirical foundations be established before major projects can be deemed warranted and competitive in the review process. Pathways proposals must describe relevant literature, research questions, data to be gathered, and analytic approaches that will be taken. Pathways proposals cannot request funds for upfront planning, and organizational work (such as proposal literature reviews) normally required for submission of a major proposal. Not all of the Pathways projects will necessarily result in a subsequent proposal. However, for those that do, the results and implications of the Pathways work must be explicitly described.
2. Synthesis proposals – Synthesis projects are small grants for the synthesis and/or meta-analysis of existing knowledge on a topic of critical importance to STEM learning, education, and/or evaluation, or for the diffusion of research-based knowledge. Synthesis proposals should identify areas where the knowledge base is sufficiently robust to support strong scientific claims, identify areas of importance to education research or practice, and propose rigorous methods for synthesizing findings and drawing conclusions from a range of relevant literatures. Proposals should identify the criteria to be used for including or excluding studies in the synthesis. Investigators are permitted to propose workshops and other meetings as a means of completing the syntheses and diffusing the research-based knowledge that is developed. Additional emphasis will be placed on the proposed dissemination plan.
3. Empirical Research proposals – These projects are designed to support the design and conduct of research and evaluation projects including the collection of new empirical data or the use of secondary analyses from existing state, national, international or other databases.
4. Large Empirical Research proposals – REESE will support a limited number of empirical projects up to $2.5 million (total) for up to five years. Proposals must carefully justify why a budget of this size would be required to carry out the research. These proposals may involve teams of multidisciplinary experts working on conceptually related problems, longitudinal studies of a large sample of participants, randomized controlled trials of an intervention whose efficacy has been established in more limited conditions, group randomized designs, replication studies, and studies focused on scale-up or national initiatives.
REESE may support a few well-focused conferences or workshops related to the goals of the program. Budgets are expected to be related to the duration of the event and the number of participants. Proposals should include a conceptual framework for the conference, a draft agenda, a possible participant list, and the outcomes or products that will result from the conference.
