Dissertation Fellowship Program

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College sponsors the annual Dissertation Fellowship Program in the field of retirement or disability research. The program is funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration and provides funding opportunities for doctoral candidates to pursue cutting-edge research on retirement or disability issues. Research focal areas include:

Disability incidence in the population;
Labor force participation;
Measuring sources of retirement income and adequacy;
Informing SSA projections;
Effects of SSA communications on worker/beneficiary behavior;
Program interactions with the Affordable Care Act;
State and local government pensions; and
The vocational grid for determining disability insurance.

Fellowship Awards

Up to three $28,000 fellowships are awarded to doctoral candidates enrolled in an accredited program at a U.S. university. Grant recipients may be required to present their work to the Social Security Administration in Washington, DC or Baltimore, MD.

Submission

The deadline for the 2019 Dissertation Fellowship Program was January 31, 2019. Download the proposal guidelines and the dissertation committee chair form to prepare for next year’s award. Review sample proposals that received awards: Sample 1, Sample 2.