Research Program 

Understanding Educational Change Across Contexts 

The Hub’s research program is organized around a central question: How do educational systems transform, and what can we learn from comparing these transformations across cultural and national contexts? 

This question is both intellectually compelling and practically urgent. Educational reforms proliferate worldwide, yet our understanding of how reforms actually work—how they are received, adapted, resisted, and transformed by the educators and learners who implement them—remains limited. The Hub addresses this gap through rigorous comparative research that attends to both global patterns and local specificities. 

Our Research Approach 

Multi-scalar Analysis We examine educational phenomena at multiple scales simultaneously—from classroom interactions to national policy frameworks to global educational governance. This approach reveals connections that single-scale analyses miss: how international assessment regimes reshape classroom practice, how teacher agency mediates policy implementation, how local innovations travel and transform. 

Mixed-Methods Design Our research combines: – Large-scale survey research enabling cross-national comparison – In-depth qualitative case studies revealing implementation dynamics – Discourse analysis of policy documents and public debates – Ethnographic observation of educational practice – Visual and participatory methods centering practitioner perspectives 

Longitudinal Perspective Educational change unfolds over time. Our research tracks transformations across years and decades, documenting how reforms evolve from announcement through implementation to institutionalization (or abandonment). 

Collaborative Construction Research questions, designs, and interpretations are developed collaboratively across our network. We resist the model of “Western researchers studying Eastern contexts” (or vice versa) in favor of genuinely joint knowledge production. 

Research Quality Assurance 

All Hub research undergoes rigorous quality assurance: 

• Ethical review by scientific  committees in all participating countries 

• Peer review of outputs through established journals 

• Open data and open access publication where possible 

• Regular external evaluation of research programs