Final report

• Alison Lee, and others
• Australian Association for Research in Education

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01 August 2010There are many challenges and uncertainties regarding the future of Education as a scholarly and professional field, as well as the future shape and influence of educational work wherever it occurs. These uncertainties range from broader social, economic, political and environmental issues to the more immediate problems of workforce planning. In the face of such challenges and uncertainties, questions of how to think about the future, and commit to a process of examining conceivable futures, become major foci for Education research, as well as for research development and capacity building. The Education Research Futures Summit was a national joint venture of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE).
 
The purpose of the Summit was to contribute to a capacity of the Education field to analyse, envisage and plan for the future, conceived in terms of not one future but a range of possible ways of thinking and conceiving the future. In pragmatic terms, these considerations led to a set of outcomes aimed at contributing to strategic planning for both AARE and ACDE.  They were directed to issues of workforce planning, research capacity building and the
development of a strategic research agenda for Education research in a changing future.
 
The Summit was held at UTS on February 25-26, 2010, hosted by the Centre for Research in Learning and Change at the University of Technology, Sydney. This report summarises the key outcomes of the Summit process and stands as a resource for further stages of planning and development by AARE, ACDE, Deans of faculties and research leaders in universities, and the Education research and professional communities more broadly.
 
Outcomes of the Summit:
 
1) a set of recommendations for discussion and planning
2) a Special Issue of the Australian Educational Researcher (Vol 37, no 4)   
3) a symposium at AARE 2010 in Melbourne, debating policy implications
4) a doctoral education resource produced from Summit video and print
materials 

Authors: Alison Lee, Nicola Johnson, Robert Parkes, Gregory Martin, Damian Maher.