Division L awards teams and individual members of our Education Policy and Politics community who exemplify commitment to conducting meaningful research and supporting the research and practice community. There are five awards that we regularly award:
In 2026, we are awarding the Outstanding Dissertation Award, the Outstanding Long Policy Report Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award. All nominations are due by November 17, 2025. You can submit nominations for any of the awards by going to the nomination form and submitting through the form, here: https://bit.ly/aera2026-divL. Please contact Ricky Blissett, Division L Program Co-Chair, with any questions.
Information about the awards criteria and nomination process can be found below for each award. Our AERA 2026 awards committee chairs are:
Purpose: The purpose of the AERA Division L Outstanding Dissertation Award is to recognize the exceptional research accomplishments of recent doctoral graduates. Dissertations employing any theoretical and methodological orientation may be nominated as long as they make an important contribution to education policy and/or politics.
Eligibility: Dissertations must have been completed and successfully defended between August 2024 and August 2025. At the time the dissertation is being considered, the author must be a member of Division L of AERA.
Nomination Process: Nominations must be submitted by a faculty member of the nominee's doctoral degree granting institution. The nomination package should include the following as four separate attachments:
Submission: Submit nomination form to the award chair, Tolani Britton, by November 17, 2025.
Purpose: The Outstanding Long Policy Report Award recognizes an outstanding policy report that contributes to education research and/or policy through its analysis, evaluation, and/or critique of education policy. The Award alternates between a long and short report.
Eligibility/Selection: In 2026, the award will be given to a long policy report (more than 35 pages in length) that best reflects the following selection criteria:
To be eligible, the report must have been published/released after November 2023, and at least one author must be a Division L member. Eligible policy reports may be published in print or on-line, in electronic journals, newsletters, blog posts, and other media. All submissions will be evaluated under the same selection criteria (research quality, relevance, and impact).
Nomination Process: Nominations must be submitted by the report author, user, or other reader of the work, and must include the following:
Submission: Submit nomination form to the award chair, Rachel White, by November 17, 2025.
Purpose: The award will recognize a lifetime of achievement in educational policy research. The field of educational policy research has generated a number of excellent researchers who deserve broad recognition.
Eligibility/Selection: In selecting a winner, the criteria to be considered will be the quality and impact of the candidate’s work over a lifetime.
Nomination Process: To nominate a candidate, there must be a nominating letter and two supporting letters. These letters should describe the candidate’s contributions to the field of educational policy over the course of the candidate’s career. They should describe the quality of the research, including--as appropriate--its rigor, insight, contribution to policy, and/or contribution to policy or policy debates.
Nominations must be submitted in full no later than the deadline and must include the following:
Submission: Submit nomination form to the award chair, Mollie McQuillan, by November 17, 2025.
Congratulations to our 2025 award winners! For a full listing of previous award winners, go to the Previous Awards page.