Education research and foresight

Research and knowledge are key to education, development, and our common future. Through its network of specialized teams, institutes, field offices, and university chairs, UNESCO builds connections between education research, policy and practice. In an increasingly complex and uncertain world, UNESCO's education research and foresight programme aims to better understand, anticipate, and imagine the futures of knowledge and learning in the service of our common humanity.

Global policy research: Research and knowledge are key to education, development, and our common future. UNESCO critically explores global education policy discourse in a changing international education and development landscape. Research focuses on issues related to the blurring of boundaries between public and private, the growing influence of global policies on local education realities, and the rise of large-scale learning assessments in education policy.

The Futures of Education: UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative aims to rethink education and shape the future. The initiative is catalyzing a global debate on how knowledge, education and learning need to be reimagined in a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty, and precarity. The work will be guided by a high-level International Commission of thought-leaders from diverse fields and different regions of the world. In November 2021 the commission will publish a report designed to share a forward looking vision of what education and learning might yet become and offer a policy agenda.

Rethinking education & learning: In a context of constant societal, environmental and technological change, UNESCO has a long-standing tradition in rethinking the purpose of education and the organization of learning, which includes milestone and visionary publications such as the Faure and Delors reports. UNESCO also publishes studies and papers on the implications of the changing landscape, both for teaching and learning practices, as well as for the aims of education.

Research papers and journals: UNESCO contributes to research on global education through a number of research journals and papers. This includes paper series such as the Education Research and Foresight (ERF) Working Papers, and the Global Education Monitoring Report Policy Papers, and journals such as the International Review of Education; The Journal of Lifelong Learning; Prospects;The Comparative Journal of Curriculum; Learning & Assessment and The Blue DOT.