Mission Fund

The NCME Mission Fund was established to provide a means for donors to express their tangible support for NCME’s mission to advance the science and practice of measurement in education, and to provide individuals and organizations with financial support for projects and research that address this mission directly.

To volunteer for a committee, send an email to NCME at ncme@ncme.org. A current NCME membership is required.

2025–2026 Proposals
Donate to the Mission Fund
Members

Andrew Jones, Co-Chair
Stella Kim, Co-Chair
Ren Liu
Weicong Lyu
Ado Woo
Alexandra Kislyonkova, Student Member
Jonathan Rubright, Past Chair

2025–2026 Call for Proposals

For the current cycle, the Mission Fund is offering grants for initiatives focusing on advancing research and practice in educational assessment in line with President Amy Hendrickson’s themes of service and collaboration. We invite researchers and practitioners to contemplate ways to promote the design, administration, analysis, interpretation, use, and consequences of educational assessment and measurement in either large-scale or classroom settings. Additional details may be found below. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2026.

Those interested are invited to submit project proposals that may address, but are not limited to, the topics below: 

  • Developing research, or larger scale projects that respond to testing policies or practice 
  • Projects that would develop curriculum recommendations for educational measurement graduate or training programs (e.g., masters, doctorate, etc.) 
  • Research on fairness, equity, and social justice in assessment and measurement 
  • Outreach efforts aimed at non-measurement audiences (e.g., educators, parents, policy makers, community organizations) to increase awareness and understanding of measurement issues or translate measurement research into practice 
  • Development of resources for measurement practice in underserved or under-resourced educational settings (e.g., rural schools, community colleges, multilingual student populations, etc.) 
  • Mentoring and professional service pipelines for graduate students and early-career professionals to serve school or community partners 
  • Collaborative projects between psychometricians, practitioners (e.g., school/district), data scientists, or community stakeholders to address emerging issues such as AI in measurement 
  • Shared data repositories, tools, or platforms for psychometricians and practitioners to jointly use and evolve 

The Mission Fund Grant Program is especially interested in funding projects that may have difficulty attracting other funding sources, yet have a strong potential to: 

  • Produce actionable insights and/or practical tools for practitioners, or 
  • Expand beyond traditional research horizons. 

Award amounts are limited to $20,000 each. Overhead costs in the proposal budget, if any, are limited to 10% of the total funding request. Identify all costs that are necessary and reasonable to complete the work described in your proposal. The best strategy is to request a reasonable amount money to do the work, not more and not less because: 

  • Reviewers look for reasonable costs and will judge whether your request is justified by your aims and methods. 
  • Reviewers will consider the salary listed for each of the key personnel and will judge whether the figures are in sync with reviewer expectations based on the research proposed.
  • Significant over- or under-estimating suggests the scope of work is not well defined. 

Budgets should include a timeline of deliverables, with budget payments linked to the completion of each milestone deliverable. 

The Committee will accept one proposal per primary applicant, who must be an active NCME member, and submit the following:

  • Name and affiliation for all authors 
  • Descriptive title (maximum: 15 words) 
  • Proposal (maximum: 1,500 words) describing the project or research activities. Tables, figures, and references do not count toward the word limit. The proposal should include: project purpose; theoretical framework; methodology; anticipated results, outcomes, and/or products; and the educational implications of the anticipated results. 
  • Timeline and budget (not included in the word limit) 

Please use the application template. If you have any questions about the requirements, please email the Mission Fund Committee Co-Chairs Stella Kim and Andrew Jones. 

Application Template

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

  • Scholarly and/or practical significance of the issue(s) addressed by the project, 
  • Technical quality of the theoretical framework, appropriateness of the methodology, and clarity of expression, 
  • Feasibility, given the proposed timeline and requested funding, and 
  • Potential for broader impacts of the project. 

Please email your completed application as a single Word document or PDF to Stella Kim and Andrew Jones. Please use the application template.

Funding decisions will be based on recommendations from the Mission Fund Committee, with final approval for grant awards coming from the NCME Executive Committee. Decisions will be emailed to corresponding authors after the NCME Annual Meeting. Note that recipients will be expected to present their work at a future NCME Annual Meeting. 

The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2026.