Institute of Education London

Research

The core of the Department's research activity spans the work of five interlocking research centres which provide a portfolio of research opportunities for funding across a wide range of sponsors in central and local Government, Research Councils and the not-for-profit sector, e.g. the Housing Corporation.  Information on current projects can be accessed through the links to the left.

The Centre for the Economics of Education
The work of the CEE at the Institute has currently been focusing upon research into widening participation issues specifically and in particular the factors influencing the nature of young people's participation in Further Education. This year researchers in CEE are also undertaking a major piece of work on the government's Every Child Matters agenda, analysing the multiple outcomes from schooling, including non-cognitive outcomes such as well being and attitudes to learning. This work is being done in close collaboration with our newly established ESRC methods node ADMIN, enabling the methodological work that is being done in ADMIN to inform our policy facing work at the CEE. Already we are certainly starting to reap the benefits from having these two research clusters of activity located within the same department. The CEE already draws synergy from its partners at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the London School of Economics (LSE) and local activities include collaboration between CEE and NRDC on adult learning and basic skills. However, a major goal for this year is to increase the collaboration between CEE and the WBL. The two centres already collaborate on one project, under the ESRC's Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) programme at Bristol University. However going forward we intend to build even stronger links and put in joint proposals for research to the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF).

The Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning
WBL is currently completing a five year schedule of work for the DCSF and we now have the capacity to compete for and undertake new and increasingly collaborative projects. New projects include an analysis of the social benefits of vocational education and training for individuals and social groups, and an assessment of the outcomes of a school for severely emotionally troubled and traumatised children and young people. WBL is already collaborating on projects with NRDC, including a bid to the Nuffield Foundation to analyse the impact of literacy and numeracy levels on the trajectories of older people. The Centre is collaborating with the cross-Institute ESRC Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies (LLAKES) on a series of projects for the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), and with the Family and Parenting Institute on a bid to develop additional measures to assess the impact of parenting practices.  The WBL has begun to secure and seek funding from additional sources. We have secured funding from CEDEFOP, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Housing Corporation and the Mulberry Bush School, Oxford. We have submitted a bid to the Nuffield Foundation and we are preparing bids for ESRC and the CfBT Education Trust, the former building on our research on aspirations, the latter building on our research at the Mulberry Bush School. 

Teaching Learning and Research Programme
The TLRP group represents a co-coordinating 'hub' or Director's Team for the UK Economic and Social Research Council's largest research programme for over 700 researchers in some 70 project teams and almost 20 initiatives of cross-cutting thematic analysis. The overall development of activities within the team facilitates a culture for user engagement, knowledge generation, synthesis and transformation as well as capacity and partnership building and will continue within DoQSS until the end of September 2009. After then the remaining TLRP TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) strand will relocate to the London Knowledge Laboratory under the direction of Professor Richard Noss. Professor Andrew Pollard commences his ESRC Professorial Fellowship in May 2009 and will continue his work in DoQSS.

The ADMIN Node
The ADMIN Node (PI, Professor Lorraine Dearden) is now established in the Department and funded in the first instance for the next three years. New research and administrative staff have brought an added vibrancy to DoQSS and there is every reason to expect ADMIN to be a 'flagship' within NCRM. ADMIN has a research strand and a training and capacity building strand. The research strand consists of two  programmes to explore i) the use of survey data to enhance methods for the analysis of administrative data (Directed by Professor Anna Vignoles)    and ii) the use of administrative data for the analysis of survey data (directed by Dr James Brown). These programmes unfold as eight separate projects. The training and capacity building strand is directed by Professor 'Mac' Macdonald (CLS) and has a mission to improve the way in which researchers are able to realise the potential use of administrative data and hence improve the quality of the research findings produced. Emphasis is placed upon training and developing capacity in analysing large-scale UK longitudinal surveys where one of the modes of data collection involves data linkage. The programme will aim to build national capacity in quantitative methods in close collaboration with the ESRC NCRM Hub, the ESRC Researcher Development Initiative (RDI) and other ESRC initiatives. New visitors to the department include Professor Anders Skröndal (Norwegian Institute of Public Health) who will be working with Professor Sophia Rabe-Hesketh on ADMIN projects.

Proposed Centre of the Lifecourse Development
Plans to establish a new Centre for the Study of Life course Development (CLD, directed by Professor Schoon) will synthesise existing work and generate world class research on human development across the life course, concentrating on areas which address social inequalities in attainment and well-being drawing upon synergies with WBL, CEE, CLS and LLAKES. The Centre will generate theoretical and methodological advances in the study of Life Course Development and contribute to capacity building in the field. It aims to attract post-doctoral Fellows and Visiting Scientists with specialised expertise in the area of human development and life course studies, and to offer Fellowships at post-graduate and postdoctoral level. Clearly, CLD will already be complimented by our Pathways programme where we have appointed our first post doctoral fellow (pdf) and two Faculty pdfs who have commenced their work under the direction of Professors Schoon & Wiggins. Another exciting development which will fuel further collaboration in the area is the arrival of our World Scholar, Professor Jacqueline Eccles (University of Michigan, USA) in May 2009 who will be visiting the Institute and based in the Department at various times during the next three years.