Ten Regional Educational Laboratories, supported by the federal Department of Education, include every U.S. state and territory; they work in partnership with school districts, state departments of education and others to provide support for a more evidence-reliant education system. They are working to bridge the worlds of education research and education practice. RELs top three activities are:

• Conducting applied research;

• Providing technical assistance to regional stakeholders;

• Facilitating the flow of actionable, credible, up-to-date research evidence (and information, ideas, and approaches that are clearly based on credible research evidence) among researchers, educators and policymakers.

Available resources include: Videos, infographics, tools, research data and reports, as well as “Ask a REL,” a feature that functions like a technical reference library, providing references, referrals and brief responses.

RELs are a project under the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the independent, non-partisan statistics, research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education.