One of the most important points in the life cycle of an EENE project is the transition from the Idea Phase to the Development Phase. The Idea Phase is about exploring different ideas, and during the Development Phase, the team fleshes out a serious plan for the project.

While the primary goal of EENE is to enable high-quality research in economic education, EENE projects are inherently at scale and will often require external funding for implementation. Most economic education studies are not grant-funded because most single-site projects don't need such funding. Grant funding in economic education is also rare because few econ ed researchers apply for grants. The EENE Steering Committee has experience working with funding agencies and will help project teams identify potential funding sources and acquire the funding they need.

The I2D Proposal

To make the transition from Idea to Development, the project team must write and submit an I2D proposal that lays out the details of the project. Putting together this proposal will be a fair bit of work, but much of this work will likely be reused later during Development in formal grant proposals. 

Specifically, the I2D proposal should contain the following sections:

1. Research Question and Project Overview (<250 words)
   1. What is the research question you intend to answer?
   2. What is the proposed intervention/treatment?
   3. Why is this project important?
2. Background (<500 words)
   1. What do we already know about the effectiveness of this intervention/treatment? 
   2. Proposals should reference research literature from economic education and the broader education (e.g., physics, biology, math, cognitive science) community.
3. Methodology (<1500 words)
   1. What is the population being studied?
   2. How will you sample from this population? How large will your sample need to be to precisely identify hypothesized effects?
   3. Provide details of the intervention
      1. What is the treatment? Are there multiple treatment arms? What is the control condition?
      2. How will the treatment be standardized across sites? How will you ensure treatment fidelity?
   4. What are the important outcomes and how will you measure outcomes?
   5. Propose an empirical strategy; i.e., How will you analyze the data you collect?
   6. What are the biggest technical challenges and how will you mitigate them?
4. Timeline (<500 words)
   1. Data collection for many studies could potentially be completed in a semester, but the project will also include applying for funding, analyzing data, writing up results, and conference presentations.
5. Research Team (<150 words per member)
   1. Provide a short bio for each participant; These should include positions, relevant expertise, citations to relevant published work.
   2. Define the role(s) in the project for each team member, including a leader or co-leaders that submit the proposal.
6. References
   1. Include entries for all work cited in the above sections
7. Appendix (Not required for all proposals)
   1. Draft surveys and assessments
   2. Draft treatment materials

Project teams should submit their I2D proposals as pdf’s via email to i2d@eene.org.

The Submission Evaluation Process

Project teams can submit I2D proposals any time. The EENE Steering Committee will evaluate submissions once per month. At least two members of the SC will rate (1-5) each section of the proposal and provide written feedback focusing on two areas:

• Contribution: Does the study make a meaningful contribution to the economics education literature?
• Feasibility: Do you believe the project team can actually complete the project in a timely manner? e.g., does the project team have required expertise?

After providing ratings and written feedback, the SC will meet over Zoom with the project team to discuss the feedback and answer any questions the team might have. The SC may use this opportunity to ask their own questions about the project.

If proposals are not initially accepted, project teams are encouraged to revise their proposals based on the feedback and resubmit them.