In an effort to bring more knowledge about "what works" to educational practitioners, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has made significant investments in developing and disseminating focused, rigorous research projects in order to increase the supply of and demand for this research in educational decision making. These efforts built on decades of earlier work by the U.S. Department of Education. Despite this investment, practitioners and policymakers continue to make little use of research findings to drive state, district, school, and classroom decision making. Increasingly, education researchers are voicing concern over the structural division between researchers and practitioners and are looking for new ways to integrate practitioners into the research process. Against this backdrop, IES has developed a new scope of work and awarded contracts in January for its ten Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs). The RELs are now required to engage in long-term research alliances with states, districts, and jurisdictions around a coherent research agenda. While there is significant overlap among RELs in the content areas identified as priorities for their alliances, the RELs have adopted a variety of models for research alliances--multi-district, multi-state, single jurisdiction, and cross-level (state and district combined). The proposed panel will discuss the work of three RELs under the new contract. Each REL will provide a short overview of their alliances and the first year of work underway.