Innovation Grants to Reward Past Success, Ability to Scale
Washington, Aug. 21 — The largest grant awards from the $650 million Invest in Innovation competition will go toward school district and non-profit programs that show evidence of success and are capable of being replicated on a large scale, U.S. Department of Education (ED) officials said yesterday.
The formal framework for the competition, also known as the "i3" fund, has yet to be announced, but ED officials are releasing details early in order to give applicants time to prepare.
The competition will have three levels of funding that increase on the basis of projects' past success and scalability: "Pure Innovation" grants of up to $5 million dollars for promising ideas that should be tried; "Strategic Investment" grants of up to roughly $30 million for existing programs that need to build a research base or organizational capacity to succeed on a larger scale; and "Grow What Works" grants that will go as high as $50 million for proven programs that are ready to grow and expand.
