Education researchers are pressing for continuity of federal education research capacity while federal policy shifts threaten funding and institutional stability. At the Association for Education Finance and Policy conference in Chicago, speakers warned that the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) rebuild depends on public pressure, after years of firings, contract cuts and stalled grant timelines. The account describes an emissary from the Trump administration urging researchers to increase advocacy, alongside researchers’ concerns that grant interruptions and workforce losses could weaken the field’s ability to produce evidence for instruction and student success. The key higher-ed implication is governance of knowledge itself: when federal research infrastructure weakens, universities and education partners can lose both funding and credibility for evidence-backed interventions. Researchers are therefore treating communications strategy and public engagement as core to preserving the evidence pipeline.