The British Academy and Royal Society host joint forum to address challenges in education research

The British Academy and the Royal Society hosted a joint Educational Research Forum this week (26 November) to explore shared challenges and opportunities in educational research.

The Forum brought together over 100 teachers, education researchers and policymakers from across the UK for an interactive workshop aimed at moving towards identifying a shared, jointly owned, research agenda. The aim was to harness the expertise and enthusiasm of the educational research community to enable greater collaboration in future, and to change the way education research is planned, coordinated and used.

The British Academy and Royal Society organised the Forum following recommendations in their joint 2018 report, Harnessing Educational Research. The report found that while many of the building blocks are already in place, teachers, researchers and policy makers are not always aware of each other’s priorities and this contributes to a lack of a sustained, coordinated research effort on the questions that matter.

Richard Hudson FBA, Co-chair of the Forum Steering Group, said:

“This was an exciting and very interesting meeting about how we can harness educational research better.  It brought together a very diverse range of expertise, roles, experiences and views to talk about what educational research does well and less well, what changes could make the biggest difference, and how to move towards a more coordinated ecosystem.

“As one of the co-chairs, I’m very grateful to all the participants for the open, constructive and enthusiastic way they engaged with the discussions, and I look forward to building on the connections made during the day.”

A report of the Forum will be published in Spring 2020.