Getting Funding from the Office of Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services; US Department of Education
By Jennifer M. Asmus, Ph.D.
Overview
The U.S. Department of Education (U.S.
DOE) houses the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative
Services (OSERS), which is one of six principal offices run by the
U.S. DOE. I will discuss OSERS funding that is linked to Part D
priorities within IDEA. Projects funded under Part D monies needs
to be aligned with the goals of IDEA by clearly specifying the
intended outcomes for children and youth with disabilities as well
as specific research outcomes.
There are a variety of funding options available through OSERS
Part D monies, such as Student-Initiated Research Projects (CFDA
#84.324B) and Initial Career Awards (CFDA #84.324N). Each provides
one year of funding (up to $20,000 for student-initiated and
$75,000 for initial career awards). Twelve student awards and four
initial-career awards are typically funded each cycle. Dire ted
Research Topics (CFDA #84.324D) support research to practice
projects while the focus of Field Initiated c Research Projects
(CFDA #84.324C) are quite broad (supports innovation, development,
and advancement of knowledge and practice). All of these grant
competitions are competitive discretionary grants (meaning tied to
legislative and regulatory requirements of IDEA). Directed research
and field initiated grants are funded for up to $180,000 per year
for three years ($540,000 total). There are several other types of
funding available, such as model demonstration projects, personnel
preparation, and outreach projects. (For more information on these
and other funding options see the "grant opportunities " section of
http://www.ed.gov/searchResults.jhtml?ct=1242699862&cl=1).
When there is a call for proposals, it comes in the form of an
"absolute priority," under which there are three to four "broad
areas of focus" stated (e.g., access to learning, accountability
and reform, social and emotional development). For directed
research grants, each of these areas of focus has several "target
areas" to select from (e.g., research on early childhood mental
health, assessing self-determination skills) and each focus area
has a set number of awards to fund (eight-ten for each priority).
Field-initiated projects list out three to four invitational
priorities but all 14 awards are allotted across all areas.
A team of outside peer reviewers that changes with each
competition reviews research grants. This panel may include
consumers of research, such as parents, persons with disabilities,
or practitioners. Peer reviewers read and score a group of assigned
applications and give a proposal a pre-panel score from 0 (lowest)
to 100 (highest). This score is based on adding the scores for each
individual section of the proposal. There are five sections:
significance (20 points), quality of the project design (35
points), quality of project personnel (20 points), quality of the
management plan (15 points), and adequacy of resources (10 points).
After the pre-panel review, the entire group meets again to review
and discuss all of the applications and reviewers have the
opportunity to change their scores. There is then typically some
standardization of scoring conducted by OSERS and they review all
of the proposals prior to making final decisions on which proposals
will be funded. Typically Congress has to approve the funding of
awards (i.e., release the funds) prior to the program officer
notifying recipients.
I have submitted single-case design projects to directed
research (both were funded) and field-initiated (not funded)
competitions. The time from submission to decision ranged from two
to five months. There were three to four reviewers assigned to each
proposal. Justification of the number of participants to be
included, communicating a clear and reasonable research plan, and
the ability to demonstrate that the project would improve
educational practices/educational outcomes for children with
disabilities appeared critical based on reviewer feedback.
Where to Begin
It all begins with the notice in the Federal Registrar of grant
competitions (
http://www.ed.gov/news/fedregister/announce/index.html)This
website provides links to the OSERS charts of the anticipated or
actual application notice and deadlines for submission and review.
The forecast tables also specify the number of awards and amounts.
This issue is very crucial. For example, the field initiated
competition is very fierce, over 100 applications typically
submitted for 14 awards. However, directed research grants have
fewer applications and a larger number of awards when there is
sufficient notice (3 months) and even less competition (e.g., 55
applications for 22 awards) when there is minimal notice (typically
one month notice in the summer). So it pays to know the typical
grant deadline cycle but also to watch for and be prepared for
unexpected announcements.
Suggestions to Maximize Scoring
Here are a few suggestions to maximize your chances of funding,
based on my own experience. First, check with the program officer
assigned to the project competition to be sure your idea sounds
like one that would be considered favorably by the panel. Second,
the director of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)
delivers an address about the upcoming priorities for the next
fiscal year at the annual project director's meeting held the
second week in July in Washington, DC. This information may help to
prepare in advance for certain focus areas of grant competitions
for the coming year. Finally, the details of the grant application
are the most important to attend to. If the information is
incomplete or missing, chances are you will not be funded. There is
a page limit (typically 50 double spaced pages) and the reviewers
are only required to read the items included in those 50 pages.
There are also several "assurances" that you need to carefully
review and include in the proposal. For example, state which of the
absolute priorities your application addresses, and discuss how you
plan to try to recruit persons with disabilities and/or from under
represented ethnic groups to be a part of the project team. We
always highlighted the page number where we addressed these
assurances as a separate table prior to the table of contents in
the pages of the application.
In summary, although $180,000 per year is getting harder to
stretch (our universities' 45% indirect costs come out of that
$180,000 per year) OSERS funding is an excellent federal mechanism
to begin a programmatic line of behavioral research.