Association for Institutional Research
Enhancing Knowledge. Expanding Networks.
Call for Proposals
AIR Research and Dissertation Grants
The application process for 2010 is now closed.
Check back in Fall 2010 for the 2011 guidelines.
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC), the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) operates two grant programs that support research on a wide range of issues of critical importance to U.S. higher education. The program has two separate purposes:
Two levels of grants are supported:Grants that aim to increase the number of researchers using national datasets maintained by NSF and NCESand demonstrate the contribution that these datasets make to the national base of knowledge on higher education policy, theory, and practice.
NPEC funding supports grants that increase the understanding and knowledge of a specific issue area identified by NPEC. The 2010 focus was “socioeconomic factors affecting access and success.”
All grant recipients must be affiliated with a U.S. postsecondary institution or relevant nonprofit higher education organization. To qualify for funding, proposal submissions must meet one or more of the following criteria:Research Grants: Faculty and practitioners are eligible for research grants of up to $40,000 for one year of independent research. (Note: These research grants are not available to students).
Dissertation Grants: Doctoral students are eligible for dissertation grants of up to $20,000 for one year to support dissertation research and writing under the guidance of a faculty dissertation advisor.
Use data from one or more of the national NCES and/or NSF datasets — Research topics may cover a wide range of policy- or practice-related issues. For a list of previously funded topics, see (funded grants). Applicants must include the analysis of data from at least one NSF or NCES dataset or must address the NPEC focus topic in the project. Additional large-scale nationally representative datasets may be used in conjunction with the obligatory NSF or NCES dataset. (For more information, see Appendix A.)
Address the NPEC focus topic — In particular, what do available data on students’ socioeconomic status show about student access and success? The analyses can focus on federal, state, regional, or institutional data and does not require the use of NCES or NSF databases. Nonetheless, the results of the research should have some applicability to the IPEDS data collection efforts. That is, the research that is undertaken should have some potential impact on federal IPEDS data collections, and the authors of the proposals are expected to define how the proposed research might affect IPEDS.(See Appendix B for more information.)
Proposals may only be submitted electronically. The 2011 proposal submission period will open in the Fall of 2010 and close in mid-January of 2011. Applicants will be notified of the funding decisions no later than the first week of April 2011. Funding will be available starting May 1, 2011.