College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research
The College is an interdisciplinary network of post-doctoral educational researchers. It was founded on the firm belief that the field of empirical educational research can benefit to a great extend from cross-disciplinary exchange and collaboration. CIDER involves the following academic disciplines: Economics, Education Science, Psychology, and Sociology. Currently in its fourth round, the CIDER network consists of three cohorts of Fellows, plus senior researchers from the participating Leibniz Institutes. The 30 CIDER Fellows of each cohort had to apply for CIDER membership in a competitive procedure. The heart of CIDER are the CIDER Micro Groups, i.e. interdisciplinary projects planned and realized by CIDER Fellows of different disciplinies. In order to promote networking across cohorts, Fellows from past cohorts are actively involved in the present cohort through invited talks and presentations at CIDER workshops and conferences.
Head of CIDER IV:
Prof. Dr. Florian Schmiedek
DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education
CIDER Coordination:
Lisa Leszczensky, M.A.
Marius Büttgen, M.Sc.
DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education
e-mail:
The goals of CIDER are:
- to promote interdisciplinary research in education,
- to build an international cross-disciplinary research network in education,
- to advance the academic careers of its fellows,
- to raise awareness for public science.
1. Lived interdisciplinarity
So-called “Micro Groups” are the core of CIDER. In these groups, CIDER Fellows from different disciplines work together on research topics of their choice. The college facilitates the formation of these projects through funding data acquisitions, experiments, travel costs, etc. The College’s research projects center around three research areas:
- Educational inequality and success against the odds
- Competence development as an educational and social process
- Monetary and non-monetary returns to education
2. A vibrant network
The second major component of CIDER are the CIDER Workshops and CIDER-LERN Conferences organized by the participating Leibniz institutes. Here, all CIDER Fellows and seniors come together to present and discuss their current research projects, exchange ideas, and form new Micro Groups. Keynote lectures feature renowned international educational researchers.
CIDER is part of the Leibniz Education Research Network (LERN).
3. Individual career support
CIDER offers various opportunities to advance the academic careers of its fellows. Mentoring by CIDER-Senior is a central feature of CIDER. Besides, CIDER offers numerous opportunities for forming networks and productive collaborations. These collaborations resulted in a wide range of scientific and public science outputs (scientific papers, projects, conference symposia, etc.) of high quality so far.
4. Knowledge Transfer beyond Academia
Besides its aims for academic educational research, CIDER also aims to increase scholarly awareness for the importance of knowledge transfer to the general public.
Funding
The first and second CIDER cohorts were funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant number: 01JG1201) and the Jacobs Foundation (grant number: 2011-963), with additional funding provided by the six participating Leibniz Institutes: DIPF, DIW, GESIS, IPN, LIfBi, WZB, ZEW.
The third cohort was funded by the Jacobs Foundation and the Leibniz Education Research Network (LERN), with additional funding provided by the participating Leibniz Institutes: DIPF, DIW, DZHW, Hector-Institute, IPN, IQB, LIfBi, University Luxembourg, WZB, ZEW.
The fourth cohort is funded by the Leibniz Education Research Network (LERN) in cooperation with the participating institutes (BiB, DIPF, DZHW, Hector Research Institute, ifo, IPN, IQB, LIfBi, WZB and ZEW) and the Jacobs Foundation. The CIDER Public Science Award 2025 and 2026 are funded by the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius.
