Welcome to the 2019 Annual Principal Investigators Meeting! Our theme this year, Critical Questions and Practical Solutions: Improving the Practice and Usefulness of Education Research, highlights the importance of the connections between research and practice, and serves as an invitation for candid discussions of the challenges in conducting education research. Our Co-Chairs for this year’s PI meeting are José Blackorby (CAST, Inc.), Laura Booker (Tennessee Department of Education), and Elizabeth Tipton (Northwestern University). We appreciate their efforts in selecting the theme, recommending sessions, and identifying speakers to make this meeting interesting and useful to you.

As in the past, our goal for the PI meeting is to provide opportunities for professional development and to foster discussion and networking among the nearly 800 PIs, Co-PIs, and training fellows currently supported by IES. Specific objectives include:

• Understanding new IES leadership priorities;
• Addressing emerging challenges and solutions in the field of education research and practice;
• Spotlighting new research findings and methodological approaches from IES-funded projects;
• Offering professional development on a range of substantive and methodological topics;
• Providing time for PIs to meet with their NCER and NCSER program officers and other researchers working on similar problems or issues; and
• Encouraging connections between IES fellows and others who may be seeking new research or career opportunities, and individuals who want to build new partnerships or fill open positions.

In shaping the agenda, we have considered the input we received from you on the 2018 meeting, including continuing opportunities to learn about research methods and dissemination strategies, share study findings through poster sessions, and connect with other meeting participants throughout the two-day meeting. Please remember to fill out the evaluation form at the end of the 2019 meeting so we can continue to improve this event.

We look forward to starting the New Year with you!

Elizabeth Albro, Commissioner, NCER & Joan McLaughlin, Commissioner, NCSER