Higher Education Research Societies

If you do research on higher education, chances are that you have come across at least one of the many societies dedicated to higher education scholarship, policy or practice. You may also already be a member of one society, or several even, and a regular participant in the their events and other community activities.

Research societies are the lifeblood of academic life. But they are also important for many among us who do research for the purpose of informing policy development or some aspect of institutional practice, and not necessarily only for advancing social science.

Aiming to create an overview of the societies out there and to hopefully make them a little closer to the newcomers to the world of higher education research, we have compiled the list you can see on this page.

This list will be updated from time to time. We have tried to include all the research societies we could find – national and international – but there are likely more. It is also likely that the information on societies included on the page changes before we update it, which is why we suggest to always cross-check any information with that provided on the societies’ websites.

With that being said, if you spot a mistake, a broken link, or if you think there is important piece of information missing, we’d appreciate if you would get in touch and let us know. You can find the email address below the list.

Thank you!


Higher education research societies


Educational research societies open to higher education researchers


Disciplinary research societies with sections dedicated to higher education


Disciplinary research societies with sections dedicated to education


Clarifications

Country / Region: Most societies are open to members internationally, although many are predominately national in terms of their activities, themes and not least the official language. Providing this type of information goes beyond the purpose of this list, but we advise you to investigate these matters before joining.

Main activities: Many of the societies have a long list of things they do. Here we listed only those we thought were the most important ones and those that societies do on a regular basis.

Journals: We listed only those journals that are owned by societies. Note that many societies have subscription deals or special issues with some journals but we did not include those here.

Membership fees: The numbers we provide here are only for orientation purposes and we advise that you check those directly on societies’ websites. Often there are more than one or two fee categories and also different discounts (for multi-year membership, for example).

“None identified”: This does not mean that a society does not provide a service, only that we were not able to find that information on their website.

The list: Societies are listed alphabetically.

Spotted a mistake? Or you think there is important piece of information missing?
We’d appreciate if you let us know!
You can reach us at echernet[at]gmail.com.
Thank you!

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay