The Employment and Training Administration has announced it intends to award a cooperative agreement to the Center for Employment Security Education and Research (CESER) for continued operations of the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Integrity Center of Excellence (Integrity Center).
This sole source award is statutorily mandated in ETA’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 appropriation. The Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019 (P.L. 115-245) provides “... $9,000,000 for continued support of the Unemployment Insurance Integrity Center of Excellence...” The accompanying congressional explanatory statement further states that, “The conferees include $9,000,000 for the Unemployment Insurance Integrity Center of Excellence (UIICE). The conferees provide $6,000,000 for the benefit of States to the entity operating the UIICE”
The primary mission of the Integrity Center is to provide training and technical assistance to states to improve UI program integrity; develop, disseminate, and promote innovative new tools and products that are transferable and scalable for all states to prevent UI improper payments and enhance fraud prevention solutions; and enable rapid alerts to states on new improper payment practices and fraud schemes as they are identified.
This “notice of intent” was posted to www.grants.gov on June July 12.
Practitioner Perspectives on Equity in Career and Technical Education
In the spring of 2019, MDRC invited practitioners from innovative career and technical education (CTE) programs to discuss questions of equity. MDRC wanted to bring these people together so that they could share their knowledge about the barriers they must overcome to achieve their equity goals and their approaches to those barriers. While many of these programs serve different populations and have different aims, the conversation revealed that they share challenges. Topics of common concern included how to define “equity” and how to increase equity in both access and outcomes.
This policy brief summarizes the most common equity challenges that were raised in the discussion, along with ideas that emerged for how to address them. While the bulk of the brief comes directly from this conversation, several examples also come from MDRC’s other research activities. The brief begins with a short overview of how the group defined equity and the main causes of inequity. It continues with discussions of inequity in access and outcomes, covering the challenges identified in both areas and some proposed solutions. It concludes with a discussion of how research can help practitioners address equity, and how policymakers can support equitable delivery and outcomes.
NIST Funding Opportunity: Economic Research and Analysis of the National Need for Technology Infrastructure to Support the Internet of Things (IoT)
The National Institute for Standards and Technology is seeking applications from eligible applicants for activities to assess the potential economic impacts, resulting from Federal research investments, of meeting the Nation’s need for technology infrastructure to support the Internet of Things (IoT). By identifying technological and economic trends in IoT research and assessing critical gaps in the Nation’s IoT technology infrastructure, the recipient will produce an economic study to help guide industry, academia, and federal researchers in their efforts to accelerate the critical research needed for timely IoT development.
Eligible applicants include accredited institutions of higher education; non-profit organizations; for-profit organizations incorporated in the United States; state, local, territorial, and Indian tribal governments; foreign public entities; and foreign organizations.
NIST has identified $400,000 for investment in a single cooperative agreement. Applications are due by August 14.
See: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=318349