Partnering in Education Research

PIER is primarily housed within Graduate School of Education and the Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) and also includes faculty and students from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Kennedy School.

Over the course of the 5-year grant, PIER offered approximately 30 doctoral students 2- or 3-year fellowships. Fellows who enter the training program after 1 year of doctoral study will receive 3 years of PIER funding. Fellows that enter the training program after 2 years of doctoral study receive 2 years of PIER funding. All PIER fellowships will include tuition and benefits, a stipend, and a small research fund. Stipends vary between $30,530 and $38,000 depending on the fellow's year of study ($30,000 of the stipend is provided through the training grant award and the remainder is provided by Harvard as cost-sharing).

PIER fellows participated in an interdisciplinary core curriculum consisting of coursework in quantitative methodology, experimental research design and education policy. Fellows also participated in ongoing research apprenticeships with faculty mentors and a 10-week internship with a school district. The training program also included an ongoing interdisciplinary seminar on education research and a bi-weekly speaker series.

The total projected costs of the training program are approximately $4.3 million. In addition to the almost $4 million grant from IES, Harvard will be contributing approximately $325,000 to cost-share fellows' stipends and provide administrative support during the award period. If funds are available, the final cohort of fellows may receive an additional year of fellowship support from Harvard after the grant ends.