Photo by Dave Green

Conversations with the Dean

Why Continued Federal Research Matters

From real-world outcomes to future innovation, there’s a lot at stake when funding is cut

Education research plays a vital role in shaping innovation, information, and equity. Federally funded studies drive real-world change in classrooms, communities, and policymaking. But as uncertainty around federal funding grows, it’s more essential than ever to understand how this research is making a difference.

For this Conversations with the Dean, Dean Penny Bishop is joined by BU three BU Wheelock researchers. Leslie Dietiker is the associate dean for research and an associate professor of mathematics education; Naomi Caselli is an associate professor of Deaf education, and director of BU’s AI & Education Initiative and Deaf Center; and Elizabeth Bettini is an associate professor of special education. Together, they discuss the current state of federal research funding and the critical work that’s at stake if funding is reduced.

Highlights from the conversation

The impact on families and communities

Families need to know . . .what they need to do and the steps that they need to take. Clinicians and teachers and professors and the like need to be able to support families. And without that evidence-based research, kids are suffering. . .  . These cuts are specifically happening to programs that are designed for people who are already experiencing barriers, people that are already marginalized in the science field. These are people who are already feeling the burden of cuts, generally speaking, day in and day out.

Naomi Caselli

Training the next generation of researchers

Our country is the leader in the world in education research—we’re the leader in the world in almost every area of research. And that is because we have the institutional capacity to prepare folks through from bachelor’s to master’s to doctoral, postdoctoral, and into positions as faculty members. When these projects disappear, all those training opportunities disappear as well. . . . How are we going to develop the next generation of scholars who can keep developing knowledge?

Elizabeth Bettini

Studying issues that have national impact

Sometimes the argument is made that funding is just shifting from the federal government to the state level for research. And I’m concerned about that. A lot of the research . . . is targeting problems that actually are not at the state level but actually are shared across all states. It’s just not effective or efficient to have researchers in Massachusetts trying to answer the same question as in Indiana and in California, and having so many research dollars trying to answer some of  the same questions at the local level where instead, one really well-designed project could  answer those questions more definitively across the country.

Leslie Dietiker

Conversations with the Dean are a series of webinars hosted by Dean Bishop that explore some of the most pressing topics in education and human development. Learn more about Conversations with the Dean.