France 2030: PPR Science for Education

Funding to support multidisciplinary projects led by French teams with the intention of producing concrete improvements to the French education system. 

The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR – National Research Agency) was first established in 2005 and is governed by the French Ministry of Research. It provides funding to public research organisations and universities, as well as to private companies, for both basic and applied research in all fields of science. Its goals include promoting creativity and openness as well as new ideas and partnerships, in particular between academia and industry. It also seeks to improve the competitiveness of French research in Europe and around the world.

Funded through the France 2030 investment plan, ANR is operating a Programme Prioritaire de Recherche (PPR – Priority Research Programme) focused on science for education. While France possesses a strong research sphere that is capable of contributing to improving the education system, its forces are not effectively optimised, which has resulted in the French education system producing limited results in terms of fundamental skills, equality of opportunity, pupil wellbeing and career choices. The PPR seeks to create the conditions for an improved structuring of the national scientific community and the development of stronger links with the educational environment.

The current call for proposals sets out to promote high-quality translational research in order to address the challenges faced by education systems. It seeks to support projects adopting a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach that will produce results that will have a measurable and significant effect on the results of the education system (eg reduction of inequalities, quality of teaching, career orientation, access to higher education etc). In order to achieve this objective, projects will scientifically examine the impact of levers for action available to education stakeholders (eg pupils, parents of pupils, teachers, educational advisers, trainers, inspection bodies, school management) and will include different structural and/or organisational levels within the education system. 

All projects must align with the objectives and global strategy of the PPR, which are:

• Contribute to the construction of a research strategy for education that is comprehensive and integrated, particularly through the creation of multidisciplinary research consortia.
• Start from an educational problem and utilise all relevant methods and analysis levels.
• Establish a genuine partnership between laboratories and education and/or training stakeholders from the outset of the project by defining the roles of each partner and the methods for collaboration.
• Seek support, whenever necessary, from public structures working in the education sector and obtain approval from the relevant educational authorities for the implementation of the planned actions.
• Implement a critical evaluation, both qualitative and quantitative, of the projects on-the-ground impact (number of participants, development of professional practices, student learning etc), both during and on completion of the project.

The call for proposals is primarily focused on three actions that aim to promote three project categories defined by their maturity level and their potential for transforming the organisation and/or practices of the education system:

• Action 1: New perspectives on education
• Action 2: Studies at scale with and for the field
• Action 3: Valorisation of results and implementation of solutions