OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation has carried out comparative policy research for over 40 years. A team from CERI will make up the roundtable. The aims are:a. To give insights into the work of an international policy research body, through an overview and specific examples of CERI's work from different education sectorsb. To discuss and illustrate the nature and use of evidence in policy research.The roundtable will have the following components:a. Tom Schuller, Head of CERI, will give a brief overview of CERI's work. He will then focus specifically on the debate over what counts as evidence in educational policy-making, and the way different policy cultures approach the use of evidence. This brings together political, epistemological and methodological issues.b. Janet Looney, CERI Analyst, will discuss the recent What Works in Innovation programme on the "Enhancement of Learning through Formative Assessment and the Expansion of Teacher Repertoires." Prior research has demonstrated significant learning gains through ongoing, classroom-based student assessment. Several OECD countries have developed policies to promote such effective assessment approaches, yet few schools have fully implemented these policies. How can policies and disseminations strategies be improved in order to bring effective practice to scale? c. Anne Sliwka, consultant to the What Works programme, will discuss lessons learned from exemplary schools and classrooms implementing effective assessment practices in several OECD countries. What have been the most effective approaches to professional development? How have school leaders and teachers taken advantage of opportunities and overcome barriers to effective practice? What lessons are to be learned on the balance of top-down and bottom-up approaches to education?d. Stephan Vincent-Lancrin, CERI analyst, will present the ongoing CERI activity on "the future of universities" that uses scenario- building as a methodology. He will stress the aims and challenges of the methodology and show how international comparison helps to select the most relevant qualitative and quantitative evidence to build the future scenarios.