IOE to support major new programme of research into teachers and technology use in education

The Education Research Programme is designed to support partnership working between researchers, practitioners and policymakers in different parts of the UK. As the programme’s Education Research Director, Professor Gemma Moss will play a key role to ensure the evidence produced by the projects has relevance for the full range of stakeholders - pupils, parents, teachers, system leaders and policymakers. 

Moss is Professor of Literacy at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, and former Director of IOE’s International Literacy Centre. Under her leadership the programme will develop lasting networks and collaborations that can identify and promote strategic directions for education research.

She will be assisted by an IOE team who will be mapping the policy landscape in education in the four nations of the UK and using systematic reviews to inform partnership working. Through events and engagement, they will also work to promote debate within the wider education research community on improving research impacts through stakeholder engagement. 

Connections created between the funded projects and the wider research community will help to foster a dynamic education and social research agenda in the UK, with hopes that this leads to more innovative policy and practice.

Commenting on the ESRC announcement, Professor Moss said: “This is an exciting opportunity for the education research community to work in partnership with other stakeholders and find new ways of tackling some long-lasting challenges in school-based education. 

“The programme recognises the devolved nature of education in the UK and in this context is looking to develop stronger links between research, policy and practice that can generate new insights relevant to local contexts.” 

Over the next three years the projects will explore new approaches to attracting and developing teachers, and the use of technology for teaching and learning. They will be led by a range of research institutions working in partnership with other stakeholder groups across the UK.  

Through this programme of research, the ESRC aims to understand how education is changing in a post-lockdown, more digitally connected world. It also aims to address a variety of contemporary issues which deeply resonate with IOE’s extensive expertise in teacher training throughout its 120-year history and work to transform lives through social justice.  

These issues include the need to improve approaches to attract, educate and retain excellent teachers from ethnic minorities and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) backgrounds, to understanding digital citizenship, and how the use of technology in schools may reinforce or reconfigure existing inequities. 

Links

• The ESRC Education Research Programme 2021-26
• Professor Gemma Moss’s academic profile
• IOE academic to lead ESRC education research programme
• Department of Learning and Leadership 
• IOE120