Education Endowment Foundation: Research Guide

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is the primary funder and commissioner of school-based trial evaluations in the United Kingdom. Dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement, the EEF operates an evidence pipeline moving interventions from pilot testing to large-scale randomised controlled trials. Unlike a traditional academic foundation grant, the EEF separates programme delivery from evaluation, mandating independent trial teams, pre-registered protocols, and open data archiving.

What it is and who runs it

The Education Endowment Foundation was founded in 2011 by The Sutton Trust in partnership with Impetus Trust, kickstarted by a £125 million endowment from the UK Department for Education (DfE). In 2022, the UK government granted a second endowment, securing the foundation’s operations until at least 2032. The foundation serves as the What Works Centre for Education in England within the What Works Network.

The EEF is governed by an independent Board of Trustees overseeing strategic direction and grant awards. In-house teams manage programme development, trial commissioning, and evidence mobilisation. An independent Evaluation Advisory Group provides academic oversight over trial methodology and quality assurance. While initially targeting primary and secondary schools, the foundation’s scope spans early years (ages 2–5) to post-16 education (ages 16–19).

Eligibility (summary, with the official source)

As described on the official page on 2026-11-07, eligibility depends on the applicant’s role in the trial ecosystem:

Delivery Organisations and Developers: Registered UK charities, universities, state schools, multi-academy trusts (MATs), local authorities, and educational organisations are eligible. International entities may apply only if the programme is delivered in English state schools, early years providers, or colleges.
Independent Evaluators: Developers cannot evaluate their own programmes. Independent research institutions must be accredited members of the EEF Panel of Evaluators to bid for evaluation contracts.
Participating Educational Settings: State-funded early years settings, primary and secondary schools, and 16–19 colleges in England may participate as study sites. Settings with above-average proportions of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) are prioritised.
Eligible Projects: Interventions must target educational outcomes (such as literacy, numeracy, science, attendance, or cognitive self-regulation) for pupils aged 2–19. Capital projects, un-evaluated technology purchases, and general supplies are ineligible.

What it funds or requires

The EEF funds progressive tiers within its evidence pipeline:

Early-Stage Programme Development: Innovation grants (initial testing across 5–6 settings) and Pre-Pilot developmental work focused on programme codification and formative feedback.
Pilot Evaluations: Small-scale feasibility studies testing intervention acceptability, compliance, and readiness for full evaluation.
Efficacy Trials: Methodologically powered randomised controlled trials versus observational studies testing whether an approach works under developer-supported conditions.
Effectiveness Trials: Pragmatic multi-site trials testing whether an intervention maintains impact when scaled across dozens of schools without intensive developer support.

Every efficacy and effectiveness trial mandates an Impact Evaluation (IE) measuring attainment and an Implementation and Process Evaluation (IPE) tracking fidelity, dosage, and delivery mechanisms. Evaluators must pre-register an official trial protocol and publish a Statistical Analysis Plan (SAP) using standardised EEF templates before receiving post-test data. Models must account for clustering and baseline balance to avoid omitted variable bias. Trials receive a security rating on the EEF five-padlock scale based on statistical power, attrition, and internal validity.

Application or compliance steps

Navigating an EEF research grant involves six sequential stages:

Call Submission: Applicants submit a formal proposal under an open funding round aligned with the EEF Research Agenda (e.g. Early Language, EdTech, or 16–19 attainment), demonstrating a robust theory of change.
Evaluator Appointment: Once a programme is selected, the EEF commissions an independent team from the EEF Panel of Evaluators to evaluate the trial.
Protocol and SAP Pre-Registration: The evaluator drafts and pre-registers a protocol following standard principles for the preregistration of a study protocol, followed by a locked Statistical Analysis Plan.
School Recruitment and Baseline Linkage: The delivery partner recruits settings while the evaluator secures data-sharing agreements. Baseline covariates are retrieved via the National Pupil Database (NPD) to minimise testing burdens.
Intervention Delivery and IPE: The delivery team rolls out the programme. The evaluator conducts independent classroom observations, interviews, and fidelity tracking.
Peer Review, Publication, and Archiving: The evaluator submits a report for technical review and external peer review. Reports are published openly regardless of outcome. Within three months, the evaluator must archive the pseudonymised microdata in the ONS Secure Research Service (SRS) for longitudinal tracking.

Typical timeline phases (no calendar dates as facts)

EEF trial evaluations follow structured chronological phases aligned with academic years:

Call and Application Phase (Months 1–4): Funding round launch, application assessment, shortlisting, and conditional award decisions.
Setup and Protocol Phase (Months 5–8): Commissioning of the panel evaluator, ethical review, protocol pre-registration, and recruitment materials preparation.
Baseline and Randomisation Phase (Months 9–12): School onboarding, pupil registration, NPD baseline matching, and random allocation to trial arms.
Fieldwork and Delivery Phase (Months 13–24): Intervention delivery in treatment schools, business-as-usual delivery in control schools, and mid-trial process evaluation visits.
Outcome Assessment (Months 25–28): Post-testing by independent administrators or linkage to statutory exams (such as Key Stage 2 or GCSE results).
Analysis and Peer Review (Months 29–34): Implementation of the locked SAP, draft report preparation, and independent external peer review.
Publication and Archiving (Months 35–38): Release of the public evaluation report, toolkit summary integration, and dataset deposit into the Secure Research Service archive.

Common mistakes

Applicants and research teams frequently encounter several avoidable mistakes:

Proposing Internal Evaluation: Delivery teams cannot evaluate their own interventions. The EEF requires fully independent evaluations conducted by panel evaluators.
Underestimating School Attrition: Inadequate retention planning leads to sample loss, lowering statistical power and downgrading the study’s padlock security score.
Departing from Pre-Registered SAPs: Altering analytical models or switching outcome measures after reviewing data compromises credibility and breaches protocol agreements.
Neglecting Process Evaluation: Treating programmes as black boxes without robust IPE documentation leaves evaluators unable to explain why an intervention succeeded or failed.
Late Information Governance: Delaying GDPR parent notices and school data agreements creates major bottlenecks when accessing National Pupil Database records.

Related programs (table)

The EEF’s trial-based commissioning model operates alongside complementary education research initiatives:

Program / Funder	Administering Body	Funding Focus	Evaluation Model	Key Output
Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)	Independent Charity / What Works Centre	Disadvantaged pupils aged 2–19 in England	Mandatory independent RCT or QED paired with IPE	Trial evaluation reports, Teaching and Learning Toolkit, SRS archive
Youth Endowment Fund (YEF)	What Works Centre / Charitable Trust	Youth violence prevention (ages 10–14)	Aggregated multi-site RCTs and feasibility pilots	YEF Toolkit, independent trial reports, longitudinal data archive
Spencer Foundation Research Grants	Private Foundation (US)	Global education inquiry across disciplines	Field-initiated quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods	Scholarly journal articles, academic monographs, foundational theory
Foundations (What Works Children’s Social Care)	What Works Centre (UK)	Family support and children’s social services	Pragmatic trials and practice evaluations	Evidence store, practice guides, social care policy briefs
ESRC Education Research Grants	UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)	Fundamental and applied social science education	Investigator-led methodological and theoretical studies	Research papers, UK Data Service deposits, academic monographs

These initiatives provide empirical evidence that feeds into wider systematic reviews and best evidence synthesis methodologies.

FAQ

Can an international organisation apply for EEF funding?

An international organisation may apply as a programme developer if the intervention is implemented directly in eligible English schools, early years providers, or colleges. Independent evaluations are conducted only by accredited organisations on the EEF Panel of Evaluators.

Does the EEF allow delivery teams to evaluate their own programmes?

No. The EEF maintains complete separation between intervention delivery and evaluation. Every EEF-funded project is independently evaluated by a research team appointed directly from the EEF Panel of Evaluators to eliminate developer conflict of interest.

What is the difference between an EEF efficacy trial and an effectiveness trial?

An efficacy trial evaluates whether an intervention produces attainment gains under ideal conditions with direct developer support. An effectiveness trial tests whether the programme maintains its impact when scaled across dozens of schools under everyday classroom conditions without intensive developer assistance.

What happens if an EEF trial finds no evidence of impact?

The EEF operates on open science principles and publishes all independent evaluation reports in full, regardless of whether results are positive, null, or negative. A null result provides vital intelligence for educators and prevents public spending on ineffective approaches.

How does the EEF archive trial data for secondary research?

Evaluators must deposit pseudonymised, pupil-level dataset records into the Education Endowment Foundation Data Archive hosted within the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Secure Research Service (SRS). This permits approved researchers to conduct secondary analyses and track long-term educational attainment via subsequent National Pupil Database updates.

Sources

Education Endowment Foundation. “About Us.” Official website. Accessed 2026-11-07. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/about-us
Education Endowment Foundation. “Evaluation: Process and People.” Official website. Accessed 2026-11-07. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/evaluation/process-and-people
Education Endowment Foundation. “Evaluation Guidance and Resources.” Official website. Accessed 2026-11-07. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/evaluation/evaluation-guidance-and-resources
Education Endowment Foundation. “Our Research Agenda: Themes and Priority Areas.” Official website. Accessed 2026-11-07. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/research-agenda-themes-priority-areas
Youth Endowment Fund. “What We Fund and How We Evaluate.” Official website. Accessed 2026-11-07. https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk
Spencer Foundation. “Research Grants: Overview and Eligibility.” Official website. Accessed 2026-11-07. https://www.spencer.org