US Department of Education — Institute of Education Sciences

Funds education research and evidence tools, while supporting federal learning data systems and practical school innovations.

The Institute of Education Sciences, or IES, is the research, statistics, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. It funds development and rigorous testing of new approaches to improve education outcomes and also houses national education data and evidence tools.

The public funding picture is now narrow after the March 2025 restructuring. The remaining active funding stream is the ED/IES SBIR program, budgeted at roughly $13 million a year and run through procurement contracts rather than traditional grants. That stream backs education technology small businesses, with phase awards up to $250,000 for Phase I and $1 million for Phase II, while the broader FY2026 research-grant pipeline has not reappeared.

IES now matters most to ed-tech founders with a product that can pass validation gates and to researchers who need a federal home for education evidence work. The institute is much smaller than it was before 2025, but it still sits at the center of federal education data, evaluation, and product development for software aimed at classrooms and learners.