As part of an effort to improve the quality of educational research and make it less balkanized, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) have introduced a common set of evidence standards for federally funded work. The criteria will guide all new research at the IES, the U.S. Department of Education's main research agency, and all NSF research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. The new guidelines distinguish three interconnected types of education studies: (1) Core knowledge, including foundational research, early-stage, and exploratory research; (2) Design and development research, to create interventions or strategies; and (3) Impact evaluations, including how those interventions work under ideal situations, as well as real-life settings with different groups of students.