The year 2023 was the first truly post-covid year and it was a delight that most of our events and meetings were face to face again. We continued our regular newsletter and seminars and also held our annual conference in November, organized with EducationLab around the theme of ‘evidence-informed policy and practice in education’. The opportunities for post-pandemic travel allowed international colleagues to visit us for brief research stays and visiting scholarships.
That year also offered an opportunity to reflect on the external audit report that was issued at the end of the previous year. The panel praised the institute for its clear identity, as well as the clear focus on interdisciplinary and collaborative research on learning and development. Other strengths identified by the panel were the societal relevance of its research, its open academic culture and its contributions to open science, most notably through a variety of stakeholder collaborations and transparent data management and storage for national and international partners. LEARN! was considered exemplary in developing open science and creating an open, multi perspective, transparent, and welcoming academic culture. Throughout 2023 we continued to build our informal network structure with opportunities for LEARN! members to meet, collaborate and share ideas.
During the annual conference at the end of 2023, Professor Ehren handed over the role of director to Professor van Atteveldt who will continue the work with the development of a new strategic plan that will address some of the areas identified by the audit panel, including the identification of focus areas, the collaboration between the five programmes, further enhance the inclusive nature and diversity of membership of the institute and increase the support and monitoring of PhD students. As always, we are committed to our mission which is summarised as:
LEARN! is an interdisciplinary research institute on learning in an institutional and societal context. We study learning and development and the context in which people learn and develop.
You can read the 2023 Annual Report here: https://vu.nl/en/research/more-about/annual-report