In 2009, NIDRR funded a contract with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct an external evaluation of NIDRR and its grantees and produce a final report.

The external evaluation includes a process review of NIDRR’s priority writing process and the peer review process. NAS also conducted a process evaluation of grantee management practices. The process evaluation was intended to make explicit how these processes ensure the quality of research and development projects.

The second phase consisted of summative reviews of grantee outputs. NAS convened national experts, with expertise in evaluation and who have expertise reflective of the areas represented in NIDRR’s portfolio. These national experts developed criteria for type 1-4 outputs to be used during summative reviews and then conducted 30 summative reviews. The summative reviews are intended to:

• provide data for GPRA measures related to the quality outputs produced;
  
  
• provide a better understanding of the products developed by NIDRR grantees, provide a quality review of the final outputs; and to
  
  
• inform future research priorities.

NIDRR will access and then implement key recommendations from this evaluation. NIDRR plans to fund two additional phases of this external evaluation effort and will use the insights gained from phase 1 to shape the question addressed in phases 2 and 3.

Questions about the external evaluation should be addressed to Doris Werwie [doris.werwie@ed.gov].

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