ECER 2026 - Call for Proposals & Network Calls

Academic Leadership in Higher Education for Building a Fairer World and Fostering Trust in Polarised Times
NW 22 Research in Higher Education NW 26 Educational Leadership

We seek papers exploring the shifting nature of academic leadership in changing, and sometimes disrupting times. Creating opportunities to learn from each other’s work, research, and practices during thematic symposia and develop a contemporary understanding how academic leadership is changing in current times. We aim to develop a broad international network connecting scholars interested in leadership in higher education, both formal and informal, focused on pedagogy, research and societal impact, but mainly motivated by building a fairer world and fostering trust in polarised times.

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Music-based methods and strategies for learning languages
NW 29 Research on Arts Education / NW 31 Language and Education

When it comes to language learning, music can be used for many goals: to lower language learners' affective barriers, increase motivation, or develop different kinds of learning strategies. Additionally, teachers use singing or listening to songs in order to enhancing vocabulary and phrases, facilitate the learning of language structures and increase fluency.

Currently, educational environments benefit from increased access to diverse musical resources through mobile technologies. Simultaneously, students possess extensive musical repertoires at their disposal.

This Special Joint Call NW 29 & NW 31 invites scholarly contributions that explore the multifaceted potential of music as a pedagogical tool in diverse language learning contexts. Especially welcome would be contributions regarding “lesser learned & researched” languages (includign sign language or Braille etc.)

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Cultivating Professional Practices for Learning and Development of New Teachers

NW 01 Professional Learning and Development

This special call for proposals for the ECER 2026 conference is organised by the European network Ecologies of Teacher Induction and Mentoring in Europe (TIME), which has been part of EERA's Network 1 "Professional Learning and Development" since 2021. The network aims to bring together scholars interested in researching the support of new teachers during the induction phase. The network has organised various research meetings to promote collaboration between researchers working on mentoring and induction practices. We now extend an open invitation to researchers working on the professional learning and development of new teachers to propose a paper for the ECER 2026 conference.

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Educational Space Responding to Social Transformations: Learning Environments and the Changing Conditions of Education Research
NW 06 Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

In the face of accelerating social transformations—ranging from technological disruption and environmental crises to demographic shifts and global pandemics—education systems are increasingly called upon to create resilient, inclusive, and future-oriented learning spaces (Bautista & López-Costa, 2025). In response a rethinking of the interrelation of pedagogy, space, technology, and community is occurring, with Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) emerging as a key conceptualisation of this change. Rather than focusing solely on content delivery, ILEs seek to establish holistic ecosystems in which teachers and students actively co-construct knowledge, supported by adaptive environments and collaborative cultures (OECD, 2013; Dumont, Istance & Benavides, 2010). We refer to this further development using the term “Educational Space.”

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Challenging Inequalities: 30 Years of Network 7 ”Social Justice and Intercultural Education – Past Insights and Future Perspectives”
NW 07 Social Justice and Intercultural Education

This special call opens up a space to reflect on the journey which has led Network 7 to stand where it does today within ECER. Its contribution lies both in the development of ideas over the past three decades as well as in interrogating practice in many contexts across several countries. The network has provided opportunities to look at controversial issues and competing ideas relating to social justice. It has also played an important role in the development of academic careers of new and experienced researchers. This is a celebration of the network’s achievements and its contribution in the future.

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Open Research Data in Education: Reflections, Practices, and Reuse

NW 12 Open Research in Education

Research data are a cornerstone of educational research. Their preparation, accessibility, and reusability are crucial for advancing scientific knowledge, ensuring transparency, and fostering cumulative research. However, how research data are documented, shared, and reused is far from trivial. Open Science provides a framework for reflecting on and discussing these practices by promoting accessible, inclusive, and collaborative forms of knowledge production. Network 12 invites contributions addressing the practices of preparing, sharing, and reusing research data in educational research. Submissions may include conceptual reflections as well as empirical studies and practical experiences regarding data management, data sharing, and reuse.

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The convenors of Network 13 Philosophy of Education are pleased to announce a special call for long papers (4,000–6,000 words) for the 2026 European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), to be held in Tampere, Finland. This year accepted long papers will be considered for publication in the Nordic journal SPEKI, Nordic Philosophy of EducationReview, with Marie Hållander and Elisabet Langmann as guest editors.

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Knowing and Acting: School-community Relationships and Educational Research in a Time of Polycrisis
NW 14 Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research

Respecting the conference theme, “Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research”, ECER/EERA Network 14 invites contributions exploring how educational research can strengthen and reimagine the school-community relationships in a time of polycrisis. For example: How does global crisis (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic, climate catastrophe, and the war in Europe) manifest in school-community contexts? What role do parents, community leaders and youth play in shaping local educational responses to crisis? What forms of school-community collaboration foster mutual care in terms of instability? How can schools serve as hubs for community engagement in a time of polycrisis?

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The nature of partnerships in education in Erasmus+ projects
NW 15 Research on Partnerships in Education

The European Commission provides funding to support and sustain different types of partnership projects. In this special call we invite proposals from projects that have been or are currently funded through the Erasmus+ initiative and share their critical reflection on the nature of partnerships that are forged. Proposals should examine how strategic cooperations in the field of education and training, form and describe the conditions that shape the coming together of different practitioners. We invite reflections that consider theories and methodologies that examine the nature of these partnerships in education.

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Evaluating Research–Practice Partnerships (RPPs) in Education
NW 15 Research on Partnerships in Education

This ECER 2026 special call examines the evaluation of Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs) in education across Europe. RPPs are sustained collaborations between researchers and practitioners focused on problems of practice, rigorous inquiry, capacity building, and actionable knowledge production. While diverse research-practice cooperations exist throughout Europe, systematic evaluation evidence remains limited. This call invites contributions exploring RPP implementation processes, partnership dynamics, and impact through innovative methodological approaches. Topics include partnership formation and sustainability, capacity-building outcomes, the role of brokers, equity and power dynamics, and participatory evaluation designs. By advancing RPP evaluation, we can strengthen these partnerships' conceptual foundations and build coherent evidence supporting their effectiveness in bridging research and practice.

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Parternships for tackling educational inequality
NW 15 Research on Partnerships in Education

Education has a far-reaching role to play in addressing social inequalities. Promoting social mobility and equality of opportunity often requires institutions to look beyond their gates and form partnerships to ensure barriers to education are addressed and children and young people can thrive and succeed. We are seeking contributions that critically discuss how meaningful partnerships can be created and sustained to meet the challenge of educational inequality, to consider if or how it might be possible to address inequalities through partnership working, and the affordances and challenges of such partnership approaches.

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Charting the way forward. Integrating historical perspectives and inquiries into contemporary educational debates
NW 17 Histories of education

Education is a future-oriented enterprise, implying possibilities, and potentially uto-pian ideals of what a positive future should look like. Educational theory and prac-tice are thus a bridge between the lived present and desired future. But education is also an enterprise firmly rooted in the past. In this special call we invite reflec-tion on the overall conference theme, ‘charting the way forward’, from perspectives informed by the past. We invite methodologically and theoretically focused contri-butions which draw on historical evidence and historical/interdisciplinary approach-es to interrogate the extent to which education can and should direct and inform our futures.

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Innovative methodologies in formal and non-formal educational diverse learning environments
NW 20 Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments

As learning environments grow increasingly diverse, there is an urgent need to rethink both pedagogy methodologies and the design of learning spaces. This call invites contributions exploring how wider notions of diversities can be integrated into innovative methodologies and intentionally designed physical, digital and hybrid environments. Current research, including NW20 insights, highlights the importance of flexible, learner-centred spaces that foster collaboration, autonomy and multimodal engagement. Responsive and inclusive methodologies are essential for supporting diverse learners from a wider perspective. We seek studies examining how innovation, participation and spatial design intersect to transform learning across formal and non-formal diverse educational contexts.

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What can be the Value of a Psychoanalytic Approach in Education for Knowing and Acting?
NW 21 Education and Psychoanalysis

There are many ways to respond to ECER 2026 general Call in the frame of Network 21. We suggest below a few ideas that could be explored in this conference from a perspective linking education and psychoanalysis. Questioning the social utility of educational research in a context of “Poly-crisis” will be an opportunity to focus on the conditions for producing psychoanalytically oriented research.

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Controversial Topics in Children’s Rights and Education
NW 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education Name

This special call invites contributions that explore controversial issues in the theory, practice, and politics of children’s rights in education. In today’s global “poly-crisis” (Morin et al., 1999), characterised by war, climate emergency, widening inequalities, and digital transitions, the field of children’s rights in education faces new challenges and controversies. Competing interpretations of children’s rights often reveal tensions between universalism and cultural pluralism, advocacy and critique, as well as between rights-informed policymaking and ideological agendas. The increasing polarization of the world further exacerbates these tensions. The special call encourages interdisciplinary contributions that question established assumptions and propose new research directions.

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Educational research on didactics, teaching and learning in times of uncertainty. Societal demands, individual needs and scientific contributions in a changing world
NW 27 Didactics, Learning and Teaching

This special call in Network 27 would like to explore the challenges that teachers and students face in the context of rapid societal changes, poly-crisis and the emergence of new social and individual needs, especially with regard to times of uncertainty. At the same time, we invite you to examine the contribution of educational research to these socially relevant questions in more detail. This involves methodological issues, as well as research ethics. How can experiences of uncertainty and poly-crisis be empirically captured? How does a generally certainty-oriented research deal with fundamental uncertainty? How does research deal with the fact that its contribution is now fundamentally questioned in certain discourses?

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Experimental and risky formats to present ‘research other’ in arts and education

NW 29 Research on Arts Education

Arts-Based Research in education invites researchers to explore other onto-epistemologies, formats, methods as well as ways to approach and create knowledge, which is also in line with performative inquiry. It entails an openness to carry out another research, through relations, experimentations and, above all, taking risks. Given the current tendency to block authenticity and sincerity in research, this special call invites arts and educational researchers to present research in experimental and risky terms, aiming to imagine alternative approaches to research. By this, we intend to challenge current tendencies and claim situatedness as resistance to neoliberalist research.

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Environmental and sustainability education in a time of poly-crisis: aims, knowledges, methodologies and practices
NW 30 Environmental and sustainability education in a time of poly-crisis: aims, knowledges, methodologies and practices

In a time of poly-crisis, Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) faces considerable challenges. While the climate crisis is a present reality exacerbating the ongoing ecological crisis, other concerns are continuously brought to attention, including the dismantling of democracy, pandemics, wars and conflicts, the refugee crisis, the radical impact of AI, and the massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few. How should ESE address this situation and (re)articulate itself?

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Language Education in the Age of AI
NW 31 Language and Education

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into educational spheres is rapidly transforming the landscape of language learning. From machine translation and generative AI to intelligent tutoring systems and automated assessment, AI tools are transforming how languages are taught, learned, and practiced (Chapelle, 2025; Al-Hoorie & Alshakhori, 2025; Karataş et al., 2024). As AI tools become key actors in the classroom (Tolstykh & Oshchepkova, 2024), it is crucial to evaluate their role in either reinforcing or challenging standard norms and practices, and to explore how they might be used to support equitable language learning while minimizing risks to linguistic diversity and educational autonomy.

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Decolonising Language Education
NW 31 Language and Education

Language education has evolved within systems and structures shaped by historical power relations. In some settings, these arrangements shape the recognition of learners’ diverse linguistic repertoires and ways of being and knowing – including heritage, regional/minoritised, community and migration-related languages, and Signed languages (García & Li, 2014; Canagarajah, 2013). As classrooms across Europe and beyond become more multilingual, it is timely to reconsider how languages are taught, learned, assessed, and valued. Here, decolonising refers to attending to coloniality in contemporary practice – broadening legitimacy, re-working criteria and materials, and sharing epistemic authority, while remaining distinct from political projects of decolonisation (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018).

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Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of organization education research
NW 32 Organizational Education

With our call organizational education (network 32) we invite scholars from organizational education and related disciplines to engage with the theme “Knowing and Acting in and Between Organizations.” Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Theories of knowing and acting in organizational education,

• Knowledge for action and theories-in-use,

• Tacit and explicit knowing in organizational learning,

• Co-creation, participation, and communities of practice as well as

• Knowing–doing gaps and organizational hypocrisy

• AI, algorithmic knowledge, and the transformation of organizational knowing

• Decolonial, feminist, and posthuman perspectives on organizational knowing and acting,

• Epistemic justice, legitimacy, and knowledge-power relations in organizing

• Spatial and relational approaches to knowing and acting.

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Knowing and acting: the changing conditions and potentials of education research
NW 33 Gender and Education

We seek papers exploring the question of how 21st century education researchers are adapting to the changing conditions and potentials of education research in the field of gender. In our disruptive societies, complexity concerning gender is increasing because of threats to the status of women and girls and their roles. Retrospective perspectives concerning the importance of education for women are emerging. Feminist and gender researchers are engaging with the conceptual, political and social issues which arise from populist and counter-populist trends. Exploration of the relationship between knowing and acting is vital because of the destruction of linear connections between them.

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