NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship

The NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship seeks to encourage a new generation of scholars from a wide range of disciplines and professional fields to undertake research relevant to the improvement of education. These $27,500 fellowships support individuals whose dissertations show potential for bringing fresh and constructive perspectives to the history, theory, analysis, or practice of formal or informal education anywhere in the world.

This highly competitive program aims to identify the most talented researchers conducting dissertation research related to education. The Dissertation Fellowship program receives many more applications than it can fund. This year 35 fellowships will be awarded.

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants need not be citizens of the United States; however, they must be candidates for a doctoral degree at a graduate institution within the U.S. The fellowship is not intended to finance data collection or the completion of doctoral coursework but rather to support the final analysis of the research topic and the writing of the dissertation. For this reason, all applicants must confirm via the online application that they will have completed all pre-dissertation requirements by June 1, 2024 and must provide a clear and specific plan for completing the dissertation within a one or two-year time frame.