Who Cares about Using Education Research in Policy and Practice?

Annex A. List of contributors

John Bangs

John Bangs (Chapter 10) is a Special Consultant to the General Secretary at Education International (EI), and Chair of the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) Working Group on Education and Skills at the OECD. John has co-authored a number of books on education and skills policy such as Reinventing Schools, Reforming Teaching (2010), Teacher Self Efficacy, Voice and Leadership (2012) and Reforming or Re-inventing Schools? (2020). He was previously a teacher in East London for 18 years, working in special and secondary schools. Building on this experience, he was Head of Education, Equality and Professional Development at the National Union of Teachers for England and Wales until 2010.

Annette Boaz

Annette Boaz (Chapter 6) is Professor of Health and Social Care Policy at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She has more than 25 years of experience in supporting the use of evidence across a range of policy domains. She was part of one of the largest UK investments in the evidence use landscape, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice and a Founding Editor of the Journal Evidence & Policy. She has a particular research interest in stakeholder involvement, the role of partnerships in promoting research use and implementation science, recently publishing a book on evidence use What Works Now. Annette is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and is a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) European Advisory Committee on Health Research. She currently seconded part-time to the United Kingdom (UK) Government Office for Science. With Kathryn Oliver she leads the Transforming Evidence initiative.

Tracey Burns

Tracey Burns (Chapter 3) is Chief Research Officer at the National Center on Education and the Economy in Washington, DC. She is seconded to this position from the OECD's Directorate for Education and Skills, where she was Chief of Research for the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). She is additionally an expert in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Broadband Commission and was previously an expert for their International Commission on the Future of Education.

Tracey has authored numerous articles, reports, books, and book chapters, most recently What Schools for the Future? Leadership for Uncertainty; Trends Shaping Education 2022. Previous to her time at the OECD, she conducted research on language acquisition in children and newborn infants and was an award-winning lecturer on child development. Tracey holds a BA from McGill University, Canada, and a PhD in experimental psychology from Northeastern University, United States (US).

Connie Cirkony

Connie Cirkony (Chapter 9) is a Research Fellow with the Monash Q Project in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. She is an experienced educator with expertise in evidence-informed policy and practice and science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) curriculum and pedagogy, environmental and sustainability education, and digital learning environments. Her career in education is characterised by systems-wide and international perspectives in teaching, learning, and policy. Connie is on Twitter @ConnieCirkony.

Blake Cutler

Blake Cutler (Chapter 9) is a PhD student and Research Assistant with the Monash Q Project in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. His doctoral studies are focused on how the quality use of research can address issues of social inequity for queer people in Australian schools. Prior to joining the Monash Q Project, Blake was an experienced music teacher across primary, secondary, and instrumental settings. Blake tweets at @blakeacutler.

Joanne Gleeson

Joanne Gleeson (Chapter 9) is a Research Fellow with the Monash Q Project in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Joanne draws from cross-sectoral professional experience in executive human resource management, business consulting, careers counselling, education and education research. Her research is focused on educational evidence use, and improving adolescents’ career identity, employability and education-work transitions. Joanne is on Twitter @dr_gleeson.

David Gough

David Gough (Chapter 7) is Professor of Evidence Informed Policy and Practice and Director of the EPPI-Centre at the Institute of Education, University College London (UCL). David’s publications include An Introduction to Systematic Reviews, the Evidence Synthesis International Position Statement and UK What Works Centres: Aims, methods and contexts. His recent work includes a systematic review of student knowledge exchange (the ISIKLE project) and involvement in the ESRC’s International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) on COVID-19, including a “’living map”’ of reviews on social science evidence and the pandemic. He was co-editor of the journal Evidence and Policy from 2009 to 2017.

Gábor Halász

Gábor Halász (Chapter 8) is doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Professor of education at the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology of the University Eötvös Loránd in Budapest. He is currently leading a Centre for Higher Education and Innovation Research and one of the programmes of the Doctoral School in Educational Sciences. He was Director-General of the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research and Development where he later took the position of scientific advisor. Between 1996 and 2021, Professor Halász represented Hungary on the CERI Governing Board at the OECD. He also served twice as president of this Board. Currently Professor Halász is leading a four-year research project exploring the effectiveness of various forms of teacher learning and professional development.

Martin Henry

Martin Henry (Chapter 10) is a Research Coordinator at Education International (EI). He is currently leading projects on the global status of teachers, teacher identity, teacher union renewal, technical vocational education and training, curriculum breadth, the teaching profession in Africa, professional standards and the future of work in education. He also represents teachers and educators at the OECD, UNESCO, International Labour Organisation (ILO) and other international forums. Before joining EI in 2016, Martin spent three years leading the professional issues work at the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA), a trade union. Prior to that, he worked for 5 years as a Deputy Principal in a New Zealand high school and spent 3 years managing at the New Zealand Ministry of Education.

Jordan Hill

Jordan Hill (Editor, Chapter 4) is an Analyst in the Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project and the 21st Century Children project. He holds a BA in History from Royal Holloway, University of London and an MA in International Relations from the College of Europe, Bruges. Before joining the OECD, Jordan worked as a Research Manager in a Brussels-based public policy consultancy, delivering a wide range of EU-funded research projects. Previous to this, he worked on higher education policy for a London-based university association.

Anna Numa Hopkins

Anna (Chapter 6) is a researcher and policy engagement professional. She is interested in the uses of academic research evidence and the politics of knowledge production and use. In particular, she is interested in issues of power at the intersections of research, policy and practice. Anna is a Senior Researcher with Transforming Evidence, where she conducts research on evidence production and use. She is also Policy Engagement Lead at the Network for international policies and co-operation in education (NORRAG), where she focuses on mobilising under-represented expertise, particularly from the Global South, to address questions of quality and equity in international education.

Chris Maidment

Chris Maidment (Chapter 7) is a Research Associate at University College London (UCL) Energy Institute, specialising in systematic reviews. His background in energy includes a PhD looking at the health impacts of household energy efficiency measures and a master’s in sustainable development, while recent projects have involved conducting rapid realist reviews on various aspects of smart local energy systems and climate change mitigation. While at UCL’s EPPI-Centre, he studied the use of research, examining how evidence from different fields is assessed, synthesised and developed into guidance for practitioners and policymakers in the UK.

Emese K. Nagy

Emese K. Nagy (Chapter 10) is Associate Professor at the University of Miskolc, Hungary, and the headmaster of Hejőkeresztúr primary school. Her teaching and research focus on aspects of teaching and learning in academically and socially diverse classrooms as well as topics in teacher education. She is the leader of the Komplex Instrukciós Program (KIP; www.komplexinstrucio.hu), where she works on the development, research and countrywide dissemination of KIP, a pedagogical approach to creating equitable classrooms. Her current research focuses on teaching and learning in heterogeneous classrooms and teacher education.

Kathryn Oliver

Kathryn (Chapter 6) is Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is a social scientist with interests in how evidence is made and used in public policy, particularly around theorising this relationship and evaluating interventions that seek to improve evidence use. She is currently seconded to the UK Government Office for Science, where she works closely with funders and science advisors to improve the science system. Kathryn co-directs the Transforming Evidence initiative with Annette Boaz. This initiative is a global collaborative seeking to bring together learning and practice from different sectors and disciplines to improve research on evidence use.

Tine S. Prøitz

Tine S. Prøitz (Chapter 10) is a Professor in Education Science at the University of South-Eastern Norway. Prøitz has been leading several research projects over the years on varied aspects of research-practice and policy-practice nexuses. Her research interests lies within the fields of education policy and education research. Most recently, she has been leading the Swedish Development, Learning, Research (ULF) research project 2018-2022, focused on developments in practice-based education research. Currently Prøitz is the principal investigator of the Norwegian Research Council (NRC)-funded research project CLASS – Comparisons of leadership autonomy in school districts and schools in Norway, Sweden and Germany.

Nóra Révai

Nóra Révai (Editor, Chapters 1 and 11) is the analyst leading the OECD's Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project. She is also involved in the Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Skills project. In recent years, she played a key role in developing the OECD’s Teacher Knowledge Survey. Her research and policy interests include knowledge dynamics in policy and practice, networks and leadership, and assessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities.

Before joining the OECD, she managed EU-funded international projects on school leadership at the Hungarian national agency for European co-operation programmes in education. She had also worked as a secondary school teacher. Nóra holds an MSc in Mathematics and a BA in English Teaching from Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. She also holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Strasbourg, France.

Mark Rickinson

Mark Rickinson (Chapter 9) is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. His work is focused on understanding and improving the use of research in education. He is currently leading the Monash Q Project, a five-year initiative with the Paul Ramsay Foundation to improve the use of research evidence in Australian schools.

Mandy Salisbury

Mandy Salisbury (Chapter 9) is a PhD student and Research Assistant with the Monash Q Project in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Her post-graduate studies focus on understanding Early Childhood educators’ use of research evidence, with a focus on the complexity of its integration with other types of knowledge. Mandy’s teaching experience includes practitioner and leadership roles in formal school settings, leading professional development in Early Childhood programmes, and a teaching associate role in the Faculty of Education.

Mark Schneider

Mark Schneider (Chapter 10) is Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the US Department of Education. Before joining IES, Mark Schneider was Vice-President and Institute Fellow at American Institutes for Research (AIR) and President of College Measures. Prior to joining AIR, Mark served as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics from 2005-2008.

He is the author of numerous article and books on education policy. His most recent book, The University Next Door was published in 2014. Other books include Getting to Graduation, published in 2012 and Higher Education Accountability, published in 2010. Schneider's 2000 book, Choosing Schools, won the Policy Study Organization's Aaron Wildavsky Best Book Award.

Tom Schuller

Tom Schuller (Chapter 3) is an independent social and educational researcher. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London and UCL Institute of Education. He was previously Director of the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning at the UK's National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, and Director CERI at the OECD between 2003 and 2008. He has authored numerous articles, reports and books, most recently The Paula Principle: How and why women work below their competence level, 2017. Tom holds a master’s degree from Oxford University, a post-graduate certificate in education from the University of London, and a doctorate from Bremen University in Germany.

Jonathan Sharples

Jonathan Sharples (Chapter 7) is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), seconded from UCL’s Social Research Institute. Jonathan works with schools and policy makers across the sector to promote evidence-informed practice, and spread knowledge of “what works” in teaching and learning. He writes evidence-based guidance for schools and works with practitioners to scale-up effective practices. He is the lead author of EEF’s School’s Guide to Implementation.

José Manuel Torres

José Manuel Torres (Editor, Chapter 2 and 5) is a consultant for the Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project. He holds a master’s degree in Public Policies from the Pantheon-Sorbonne University and a BSc in Economics and Business Administration from the Universidad Católica de Chile.

Before joining the OECD, he worked as a research assistant in Chile and France on subjects including socio-economic characterisation of territories and sports economics. For three years, he worked on the design, planning and implementation of innovative educational programmes at Fundación Chile.

Vivian Tseng

Vivian Tseng (Chapter 10) is Senior Vice-President, Program at the William T. Grant Foundation, where she oversees grant-making programmes and leads initiatives to connect research, policy, and practice. She created the Foundation’s initiative on the use of research evidence in policy and practice, which has supported over 60 studies and informed funding programmes across the country.

Under her leadership, the Foundation has increased its grant making to researchers of colour, developed a mentoring programme for students of colour, and launched a programme to support non-profit leaders from racially minoritised and LGBTQ+ communities. She received her PhD from New York University (NYU) and her BA from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and serves on the Boards of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (Board chair), Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, and the Federation of Associations in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Dirk Van Damme

Dirk Van Damme (Chapter 10) is currently owner and president of DVD EduConsult and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Curriculum Redesign in Boston, US. Until the end of May 2021, he was Senior Counselor in the OECD's Directorate for Education and Skills in Paris and head of the CERI. Before joining the OECD in 2008, he was Professor of Educational Sciences at Ghent University and Comparative Pedagogy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel as well as Visiting Professor of Comparative Pedagogy at Seton Hall University in the US. He has been advisor to several Flemish ministers of education and a board member of several quality assurance organisations for higher education, publishing extensively. At the OECD, he supervised and promoted work on educational technology, social and emotional skills assessment and educational innovation. He has a PhD from the University of Ghent, Belgium.

Lucas Walsh

Lucas Walsh (Chapter 10) is a Professor of Education Policy and Practice, Youth Studies, in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. He is currently a chief investigator on the Monash Q Project funded by The Paul Ramsay Foundation. Recent books include: Imagining Youth Futures: University Students in Post-Truth Times and Young People in Digital Society: Control Shift.

Makito Yurita

Makito Yurita (Chapter 10) is a Professor at the National Institute for School Teachers and Staff Development (NITS) where he is responsible for providing research-informed policy advice and policy implementation in the areas of teacher preparation and professionalisation of teachers and school personnel. He also serves as an Education Advisor for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) where he has developed and implemented an analytical method to quantify large-scale qualitative data to strengthen the agency’s public outreach programmes. He was seconded to work as a Policy Analyst at the OECD for two years from 2019 until 2021, where he worked on the Teacher Professional Learning Study. He has a PhD in American Studies (interdisciplinary programme) from Michigan State University in political philosophy, teacher education and historiography.