More About ED/IES SBIR
Product Innovation. ED/IES SBIR-supported awardees have brought emerging and innovative forms of learning and instructional technologies to classrooms, such as games, assessments, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 3D-printing, simulations, virtual worlds, AI adaptive tutors, data dashboards, and assistive technologies. Many ED/IES SBIR-supported products have won national industry awards for technological innovation in education. See the list of awards here.
Research. ED/IES SBIR emphasizes rigorous and relevant research for all projects – through cycles of iterative studies with end-users (e.g., students, teachers) to inform refinements to prototypes and pilot studies to examine the promise of the finished products to lead to intended outcomes. Many ED/IES SBIR awardees publish research results in refereed journals and produce briefs summarizing key findings from projects. Many ED/IES SBIR awardees partner with researchers to continue evaluating their product's effectiveness after commercial launch. This blog describes how one firm received an IES Research Grant for a multi-year efficacy evaluation after the conclusion of its ED/IES SBIR project.
Commercialization. ED/IES SBIR focuses on private sector commercialization after development is complete so that products can be disseminated to schools and be sustained over time. Each year, thousands of schools and more than a million students and teachers across the country use technologies developed through ED/IES SBIR. Several ED/IES SBIR supported companies have been acquired to enable scale-up. Read these Success Stories for examples of companies that have commercialized ED/IES SBIR products on a wide scale basis.
Bringing Research and Practice. Many ED/IES SBIR awards focus on developing products to advance previous IES-supported or university-based basic research into modern and scalable products ready for commercialization in schools. This blog describes how one firm developed a technology-based platform to support widespread implementation of an IES-supported evidence-based intervention.
Annual Innovation Showcase. The ED Games Expo is an annual public event in Washington, D.C., where attendees of all ages can demo more than 100 educational learning games and technologies while meeting face-to-face with the developers. The technologies at the Expo were developed through the ED/IES SBIR program and across more than 20 other government programs.
