For over three decades, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded the Grants Program in support of AERA’s efforts to enhance the visibility and use of large-scale designed and administrative data through dissertation and research grants and statistical institutes aimed at building research capacity. Over 600 graduate students and early career scholars have received these grants as they launched their careers and developed their research agendas in STEM education research.

The AERA-NSF Grants Program offers small grants and training opportunities designed to achieve two primary objectives: (1) to enhance the capability of the education research community to conduct policy- and practice-relevant research using the rich, nationally and internationally representative data sets supported by NCES, NSF, and other federal agencies; and (2) to support and promote rigorous education research.

The small grants component is an open competition to support field-initiated research that is expected to produce high-quality policy- and practice-related studies on important and timely issues in education. Both Research Grants (for those who have earned a doctoral degree) and Dissertation Grants (for advanced doctoral students) are offered. Researchers who receive support come from a wide variety of disciplines, such as education, sociology, economics, statistics, demography, and psychology, with researchers often working across disciplines.