TLRP: academic challenges for moral purposes



Career Development Associates or Research Training Fellows, with more to follow,
enhancing the projects to which they are attached. Thematic Groups are to be
established with between 6 to 8 academics and users, drawn from both inside and
outside the Programme. WebBoard will open these discussions up to all those who
care to log on. We have continuing links to the USA, where we expect to offer two
symposia at AERA in Chicago, and within Europe, where we hope to bring new
opportunities to the Programme if we are successful with our Framework 6 bids
under the Network of Excellence and ERA-NET programme-to-programme schemes.

We have excellent links to a very wide range of user organisations, both at
Programme and project levels. However, we need to work more carefully on
strategic alliances and on coordinating our activities to maximise this strength. This
is something that the Directors’ Team aim to work on, with your help, over the next
year. We are delighted to have positive support from a number of government
agencies, for whom our academic independence is understood and valued. We must
protect this, and be mindful too that changes of government (in each part of the UK
as well as nationally) are perfectly possible before TLRP ends in 2008. We also
have to develop much closer links to the media, and hone our media skills. Again,
provision is being made to support both the Directors’ Team and project spokes-
persons on this.

So what does this add up to? Alongside the imperative of conducting robust
research, we have to build social capital. This rests on developing relationships and
networks, and on sharing perspectives and building alliances with present and future
stake-holders. To do this effectively requires an organisational infrastructure - which
we are beginning to construct. More significantly it requires goodwill and
commitment from the participants in TLRP as a whole.

Conclusion

So is it realistic to expect that we can achieve TLRP’s grandiose goals to enable
significant improvements in outcomes for learners across the UK? A realist might
say: ‘no’. And yet, the world never does stay still and we can be absolutely sure that
understandings about teaching and learning in the UK will change over the period of
TLRP’s existence. In my view, it is our job to make sure that these changes are as
evidence-informed and socially constructive as possible. Whilst the main challenges
may be academic - the overall purpose remains moral.

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