Inclusive Innovation in Education

Education is often regarded as a way out of poverty, offering hope that it might help children from socio-economically disadvantaged families to lead better lives.

There are many factors that can make this ambition elusive - from ill-adapted curricula, lack of role models through to poor teaching methods. There is still a need for the governments, NGOs and private companies across Europe to  devise and implement a host of innovative programmes that can offer better quality education or educational resources to deprived populations and especially their young people.

Reacting to these innovative efforts worldwide, the CRECEINE aims to: 

• Document education innovations that are targeting both European and economically deprived communities around the world, with a special emphasis on European neighbouring partner countries .
•  Collect information using the survey Inclusive Innovation in Education, developed with the purpose of analysing both government policies and private initiatives.
•  Identify patterns across inclusive innovations and group them into informative categories (e.g. frugal innovations, in-kind benefits, catch-up strategies, kinaesthetic and visual pedagogy, etc.).
•  Propose ways in which youth opolicy makers can support the design, implementation and effectiveness of these innovative practices.

Skills and Education for Innovation

 Innovation is critical to the continuous improvement of education and the delivery of increased learning outcomes, equity, cost-efficiency and student satisfaction.

EYNCRIN`s Innovation Strategy in Education and Training aims to identify the skills required for innovation-driven societies and how education stakeholders can foster them.

What skills are needed in order to promote innovation at the society level? The research literature on skills for innovation shows that innovative societies require a broad mix of skills.

How do the most innovative organizations make use of their staff’s skills? Innovative workplaces typically support individual and organisational learning and training and give discretion to their employees.

 At the individual level, we define “skills for innovation” as: subject-based skills (knowledge and expertise or know-how in a field); skills in thinking and creativity (critical faculties, imagination, curiosity); and behavioural and social skills (self-confidence, energy, passion, leadership, collaboration, persuasion).

Innovation in education

Designing good innovation policies in education is critical to improve learning outcomes, equity, cost-efficiency and student satisfaction.

 How can public and private investment in educational R&D be increased, and its effectiveness and link to practice improved?
 Do regulatory frameworks (quasi-markets, curriculum policy, school evaluation…) provide incentives and opportunities for innovation within education systems?
 Would it be possible to foster the development of a strong pedagogical tool industry that could be compared to the pharmaceutical industry in the health sector?
 Can longitudinal information systems in education be a general purpose technology at the service of educational innovation?
 What is the link between different forms of work organisation in schools, organisational learning and educational outcomes, notably innovation?
 What are the appropriate methods of evaluation for different types of educational innovation?
 How to measure innovation in education?

Education and skills for innovation

The skills needed for innovation go beyond the traditional emphasis on science and engineering graduates. This represents a new challenge for policy makers, educators and industry willing to promote an innovation-friendly environment.
 What are the critical skills for innovation?
 How must education and training adjust to the evolving skill needs of highly innovative societies?
 Are some pedagogies more suited than others to develop individual skills for innovation – subject-based skills, but also skills in thinking and creativity, social and behavioural skills?
 What business and social organisational models are the most effective in using and further developing these skills for innovation?
 How can higher education systems develop these skills and further innovation?
 What role does the cross-border mobility of people and education play in innovation?

Innovative Learning Environments 

It is important to be aware of how young people learn, which conditions and dynamics allow them to be able to learn better. By identifying concrete cases of innovative learning environments from all over Europe, CECRIL aims to inform practice, leadership and reform through generating analysis of innovative and inspiring configurations of learning for children and young people.

The Center aims to analyse, with numerous international examples, innovative ways of organising learning at the micro level (learning environment) and how this connects to the meso level (networks and communities of practice) and strategies to implement learning change at the macro, system level.  

 The goals of the Center are to serve the educational reform agenda by:

Analysing and synthesising current international research findings on learning, teaching and learning environments.
Identifying and analysing examples of innovative learning environments from all over the world.
Engaging with the community of policy reformers, innovators and learning scientists to discuss how to make better use of these findings to make the European education systems learning driven.

The importance of  "fostering innovative workplaces"

Education and training systems must rise to the challenge of providing people with the means to learn and re-train throughout their life. Companies and organisations need to maximise the human resources they have at their disposal.

Do employers make the best use of people’s skills for innovation? Are some work organisations more associated with innovation than others? If so, are these organisations more widespread in some countries than in others? Are they associated with particular labour market policies, managerial practices, learning cultures or certain levels of education? What are the challenges for innovation within organisations?

 While looking at the answers of those questions, Our Creative Learning Center`s experts got convinced that interaction within organisations - as well as individual and organisational learning and training - are important for innovation. The analytical tools and empirical results this study provides show how some work organisations may foster innovation through the use of employee autonomy and discretion, supported by learning and training opportunities.