L’EERA (European Educational Research Association), est composée d’associations nationales de chercheurs en éducation de prés d’une vingtaine de pays. Certains pays n’ont pas d’associations membres (comme l’Autriche, la Grèce ou l’Italie), généralement pour des raisons tenant à la situation nationale de leur recherche en éducation.

EERA was founded in June 1994 as a result of discussions among many national educational research associations and several major research institutes throughout Europe which identified the need for a European association to foster the exchange of ideas amongst European researchers, promote collaboration in research, improve research quality and offer independent advice on educational research to European policy-makers, administrators and practitioners. EERA membership is made up of 23 national and regional Educational Research Associations from all parts of Europe.

EERA is governed by the Council and the Annual General Assembly.

The academic work is organised in 25 thematic networks. From 1994 to 2008 EERA was constituted as a Charity under British Law and was based in Scotland.

Since 2008 EERA has been based in Berlin, Germany, and is constituted as a "Verein" (i.e. Charity under German Law) .

EERA is dependent on the participation of the national associations to take forward its mission of promoting educational research in Europe and of fostering cooperation between associations of educational researchers.

Les services d’information et de documentation disposent de leur propre réseau (“Network 12″) , qui s’intéresse aussi bien à la coopération entre les services européens qu’à des questions d’intérêt commun concernant l’évolution des formes de production scientifique en éducation ou les enjeux d’évaluation et de diffusion des ressources pour la recherche.