DFI Speaker Series: Dr. Edward Metz, 2025 report - From Seeds to Scale

In this DFI Speaker Series talk, Dr. Edward Metz presents key findings from the 2025 report From Seeds to Scale, which examines the social and economic impact of the ED/IES Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program between 2013 and 2023. The program serves as a critical source of early-stage capital for research-based education technology products. Metz shares results showing that research-based products emerging from the program reached more than 130 million learners and educators and generated an estimated 9:1 return on federal investment. He discusses how the ED/IES SBIR program pioneered approaches to integrating rigorous research into the iterative R&D of commercially viable EdTech products, while also engaging academic researchers in commercial product development as a mechanism for readying evidence for scale. The talk concludes with reflections on the dismantling of IES in March 2025 and why a next-generation IES is essential to ensuring that evidence-based research informs practice and improves outcomes for students.
About the speaker: Edward (Ed) Metz is a Visiting Scholar at the Columbia Teachers College Digital Futures Institute (DFI). From 2004 to 2025, he served as a Research Scientist at the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), including as Program Manager of the ED/IES Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and as a program officer for the Education Technology Research Grants program. Over two decades, Metz oversaw federal investments supporting hundreds of education R&D and evaluation projects, working closely with entrepreneurs, academic researchers, and school partners to bridge research, product development, and real-world implementation. He founded and produced the ED Games Expo, the largest national showcase of federally funded education innovations held annually from 2013 to 2023. Metz holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology and has published original research on the impact of school-based service learning on students’ civic engagement.

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