Naomi Karp is the Director of the National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education (ECI) in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education. This interview concerns funding for early childhood education research through OERI's Field-Initiated Studies (FIS) Grant Program. Questions addressed in the interview are: (1) What is the FIS grant program?; (2) Who is eligible to apply?; (3) As head of the Early Childhood Institute, what are you hoping to see the grant applications funded through this program accomplish?; (4) In the FY2000 grants that were recently funded, what characteristics were typical of the strongest proposals?; (5) What were some of the problems typical of weaker proposals?; (6) When will you be accepting more applications for another round of FIS funding?; (7) What would you most like the early childhood community to know about this grant program?; (8) What do you mean by relevant (grant applications)?; and (9) Where are the exact details about the program located? (EV)