Ministers plan to launch a £3 million “education neuroscience research centre” to help inform policymaking in key reform areas such as SEND, Schools Week can reveal.
The Department for Education is looking at piloting a new “research centre” to help government officials better understand how brain development, learning processes, mental health and special needs impact pedagogy and policy.
It follows calls for a SEND evidence “custodian”, similar to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s role in generating guidance and quality standards for the NHS.
The “Educational Neuroscience Research Centre” would launch alongside another focused on the “economics of education research” – but there is little additional information about the latter.
Jo Hutchinson, co-director for early years and wellbeing at the Education Policy Institute, said a neuroscience centre will be a “very positive step towards better evidence-based policy”.
“To see how relevant this is, we only have to consider this week’s curriculum and assessment review, which acknowledges gaps in our understanding of how to teach children with SEND effectively.
“The adverse consequences of excluding personal, social and emotional development from the current curriculum might have been understood if we had more of this research available.”
‘Timely, policy-relevant evidence’
Tender documents reveal the centres will produce “high-quality, timely, policy-relevant evidence”.
The programme of work would be “agreed in advance” with government officials, but the centres would also “retain capacity for responsive work”.
This suggests they are not independent, like NICE. Although the government does already fund the Education Endowment Foundation to independently test education policy evidence.
David Thomas, former DfE policy adviser, said if the government “want to retain that responsibility for themselves, then having a body to provide academic evidence to support standard setting feels sensible.”
But Nick Johnson, chief executive at British Educational Research Association, said its vital “any proposed research centres maintain genuine independence”.
“Research should not be shaped solely by immediate government priorities or reduced to a demand-and-supply dynamic.
“There is often a natural tension between short-term policy goals and the findings of rigorous research, and it’s precisely this independence that allows research to challenge, inform, and ultimately strengthen policymaking.”
Risk of ‘more competition’
Others pointed to existing research on these topics. For example, the UCL Institute of Education’s Centre for Educational Neuroscience formed in 2008.
Susan Castro Kemp, director of UCL Centre for Inclusive Education, said there’s a risk it could “create more competition rather than bringing people together, who are already producing high-level research evidence on these topics.
“What I think would be very useful is if it was some hub that brings together the evidence many of us in academia are continuously producing, aligned with their priorities.”
But DfE said the centres will “enable close work in direct partnership with external experts across science and analysis”.
They added the “exact structure and research programme are still in development, and we’ll set out more details soon”.
The two research centres would cost £6 million and run for two years, the tender states.
While there are few details about the economics of education research centre, a DfE “area of research interest” document in April said economic expertise is required to “understand and improve the cost effectiveness of educational and care services to ensure that they deliver” benefits.
“We are particularly keen where applicable to see research which includes cost benefit analysis, which provides findings in terms of lifetime earnings or months of progress, for example.”
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