DfE unveils £6 million centres in ‘deliberate shift’ on research

Two new education research centres will receive £6 million under plans to invest more funding into UK university departments shunned by previous governments.

In a significant policy shift the Department for Education (DfE) has announced it will fund a new research centre to examine how children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) can be identified earlier and how pupils can be supported with their mental health. It will involve researchers from nine universities including UCL, Birkbeck, Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol, with a remit to “provide ministers and officials with rapid, reliable evidence when they need it most”.

A second centre, the Educational Economics Research Centre, will consider the economic and social benefits of education. Led by UCL alongside the London School of Economics and Institute for Fiscal Studies, it will build new tools to assess the long-term social and economic value of education policy, including for children from disadvantaged groups.

While the £6 million multiyear funding commitment is a large sum for education research (faculties received just £5.1 million from the Economic and Social Research Council in 2024, a recent report by the British Educational Research Association found), the DfE’s decision to directly fund education research within universities has been seen as more significant.

Since the Education Endowment Fund was founded in 2011, the DfE has mostly used the educational charity to fund its research with the charity’s initial £137 million endowment lasting 15 years renewed for a similar amount in 2022.

That funding arrangement came after Conservative education ministers such as Nick Gibb expressed concerns over the rigour and ideological nature of large amounts of university-based research, with the EEF’s work as an “independent evidence broker, evaluating and spreading best practice across English schools” favoured.

The announcement on 12 May, however, suggested the DfE may instead return to supporting universities directly, with a DfE statement noting “a deliberate shift in how DfE engages with research”.

Welcoming the announcement, Michael Thomas, the DfE’s chief scientific adviser, said: “To make the best decisions for children and young people, we need a clear understanding of how they learn, and rigorous evidence of what works. 

“These centres will give us both – bringing together the best of neuroscience and economics across two focused centres to put a stronger evidence base at the heart of education policy,” he added.

Early education minister Olivia Bailey added the new centres will bring together “some of the best minds in the country to make sure our reforms on SEND, early years, and children’s mental health are built on solid foundations, and that we understand the long-term value of the choices we make”.

jack.grove@timeshigheducation.com