The American Education Research Association (AERA) offers multiple awards for advanced graduate and postdoctoral research in education.

AERA Dissertation Grants

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the AERA Dissertation Grants support dissertation research using rigorous quantitative methods to examine large-scale, education-related data. The aim of the program is to advance fundamental knowledge of relevance to STEM education policy, foster significant science using education data, promote equity in STEM, and build research capacity in education and learning.

The dissertation research project must include the analysis of large-scale data. The Grants Program encourages the use of data sets from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and other federal agencies.

Dissertation Grants are available for advanced doctoral students and are intended to support the student while analyzing data and writing the doctoral dissertation. Applications are encouraged from the full range of education research fields and other fields and disciplines engaged in education-related research, including economics, political science, psychology, sociology, demography, statistics, public policy, and psychometrics.

AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship

The AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program provides support for doctoral dissertations in education research. This program offers doctoral fellowships to enhance the competitiveness of outstanding minority scholars for academic appointments at major research universities. It supports fellows conducting education research and provides mentoring and guidance toward the completion of their doctoral studies.

This fellowship is targeted for members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in higher education (e.g., African Americans, Alaskan Natives, American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders).

AERA Research Grants

AERA Research Grants support research using rigorous quantitative methods to examine large-scale, education-related data. Research Grants are available to faculty at institutions of higher education, postdoctoral researchers, and other doctoral­-level scholars.