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We create cutting-edge research focused on equalising opportunities across the life course. Our work seeks ways to improve education policy and wider practices to achieve this goal.
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About us
- What are we trying to achieve?
We are one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, in terms of outcomes and opportunities.
Our multidisciplinary work seeks to reduce these inequalities:
- We identify barriers to opportunity in under-explored areas, using innovative methods and thinking, and co-producing evidence-led policy solutions to reduce barriers to opportunities.
- We offer insight and impact at every stage of the life course, through the centre’s four main research streams: early years, schools, tertiary, and adulthood.
- How do we achieve our mission?
- We research previously unanswerable questions, through innovative data collection and analysis.
- We design, implement, and evaluate Randomised Control Trials (RCTs).
- We address novel questions in under-researched areas using existing large scale data from administrative sources, and from our rich birth cohort studies.
More about our approaches.
- Team
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Professor Lindsey Macmillan
Lindsey is Professor of Economics at UCL and the Director of the Centre. Her academic career has been dedicated to understanding educational inequalities and social immobility.
Dr Gillian Wyness
Gillian is Associate Professor of Economics of Education and Deputy Director of the Centre. She leads our tertiary and adulthood workstreams.
Dr Jake Anders
Jake is Associate Professor of Educational and Social Statistics and Deputy Director of the Centre. He leads our early years and schools workstreams.
Dr Jo Van Herwegen
Jo is an Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology. Her research focuses on improving educational outcomes for children with neurodevelopmental disorders.
Dr Samuel Sims
Samuel is a Quantitative Education Researcher interested in teachers and education policy. His research provides insights into how school leadership and teacher effectiveness can improve educational outcomes.
Dr Laura Outhwaite
Laura is a Psychology and Education Researcher. She is interested in child development and learning, educational technology and mixed-methods evaluation methodologies.
Dr Asma Benhenda
Asma is a Research Fellow focusing on education and labour economics. Her work focuses on teachers, teacher policies and their impact on student achievement and educational inequality.
We believe a holistic approach is vital to create informed education policy and wider practice that works. The centre's multidisciplinary team brings together different perspectives from:
- economics
- education
- psychology
- social statistics.
Staff
- Professor Lindsey Macmillan – Centre Director
- Dr Gillian Wyness – Deputy Centre Director
- Dr Jake Anders – Deputy Centre Director
- Dr Claire Crawford - Associate Professor
- Dr Jo Van Herwegen – Associate Professor
- Dr Samuel Sims – Lecturer
- Dr Laura Outhwaite - Senior Research Fellow
- Dr Asma Benhenda – Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
- Dr Richard Branch – Visiting Staff
- Khrystyna Myhasiuk - Communications Officer
- Dr Erin Early - Research Assistant
Affiliates
Members who share an interest in our research programme and support our mission:
- Dr Jo Blanden – University of Surrey
- Professor Simon Burgess – University of Bristol
- Dr Matt Dickson – IPR, University of Bath
- Dr Catherine Dilnot – Oxford Brookes University
- Professor Emla Fitzsimons – UCL Institute of Education
- Professor Alissa Goodman – UCL Institute of Education
- Professor Colin Green – Norwegian University of Science and Technology
- Professor Paul Gregg – University of Bath
- Professor Colm Harmon – University of Edinburgh
- Dr Susannah Hume - King’s Policy Institute
- Professor John Jerrim – UCL Institute of Education
- Professor Ruth Lupton – Honorary Professor at University of Manchester
- Professor Lee Elliot-Major – University of Exeter
- Professor Sandra McNally – CVER, London School of Economics
- Dr Richard Murphy – University of Texas at Austin
- Dr Michael Sanders – King’s Policy Institute
- Dr Luke Sibieta – Institute for Fiscal Studies and Sibieta Economics of Education
- Professor Emma Tominey – University of York
Advisory group
- Osama Rahman – Chief Scientific Advisor, Department for Education
- Carl Cullinane – Associate Director of Research and Policy, Sutton Trust
- Tom McBride – Director of Evidence, Early Intervention Foundation
- Tom Richmond – Director, EDSK
- Becky Francis – Chief Executive, Education Endowment Foundation
- Vanessa Ogden – Chief Executive, Mulberry Schools Trust
- Torsten Bell – Chief Executive, RES Foundation
- Tim Leunig – Economic Advisor to the Chancellor, HM Treasury
- Jan Parnell – Director of Education, Hammersmith and Fulham LEA
UCL members:
- Sue Rogers – Interim Director, UCL Institute of Education
- Alison Fuller – Pro-Director Research, UCL Institute of Education
- Lynn Ang – Head of Department, Department of Learning and Leadership
- Sasha Roseneil – Dean, UCL Social and Historical Sciences