At present, schools are facing rapidly changing environments worldwide, with issues ranging from artificial intelligence to biotechnology, from cyberbullying to cognitive and socialization deficits in disadvantaged students. In this context, they are struggling to move beyond the ultimately nineteenth-century concept of education, which, despite having evolved somewhat, remains in most cases essentially focused only on instruction (Peurach et al., 2019).

1. Educational research and implementation in schools

Over the years, professional learning and development (PLD) has become increasingly important in schools, in a world where lifelong learning is now an established and acknowledged reality (Ostinelli, 2023; Drude, Maheu, & Hilty, 2019; Abdalina et al., 2022). One aspect that is often underplayed is teacher research knowledge and influence on teaching and learning in classrooms and educational institutions. To what extent do schools implement and integrate in their culture significant, sustainable and effective innovations based on research in education, particularly in the field of teacher PLD? It is known that in a number of situations – even in the case of positive collaborations – when the time goes on, the effects of educational research fade out (Bailey et al., 2020), surviving perhaps as pleasant memories rapidly submerged by the impending habitual practices.  In fact, schools should integrate in their daily practice and in their culture evidences and findings coming from teacher PLD research, but this happens only rarely (Ostinelli, 2016). A good solution could be for them to act as authentic professional learning communities (Turner et al., 2018; Johannesson, 2022), including in their action the embedding of results coming from educational research. But how much this kind of interaction is present and well-functioning in schools?

3.    The learning professional community, a key element for embedding

Nowadays, schools are often referred to as learning professional communities. However, this concept is not always understood in the same way by different authors (Christensen, 2025). One of the aims of this presentation is to provide an initial classification of this notion, based on a comprehensive meta-analysis of texts published to date, which should lead to a categorisation of the most common meanings attributed to the term. These meanings will then be summarised in relation to the concept of embedding (Nunno et al., 2015; Geijsel et al., 2020; Sing et al., 2018), aimed at establishing whether these communities practise or not this approach. Embedding research in schools involves fostering a culture of evidence-based practice, where educators use research findings to inform teaching, curriculum, and decision-making. Key strategies can include actionable steps such as regular, collaborative staff discussions, implementing action research, updating syllabi with current studies, and dedicating time for reflection.

4.    Forms of organisation in schools

Currently, schools are implementing various types of interventions aimed at improving and innovating their educational activities:

• Communities of practice
• Coaching
• Mentoring
• Leadership development
• Action research

This study seeks to highlight how these practices are or are not implemented, together with embedding, within educational institutions that define themselves as professional learning communities. This is verified through meta-analyses of the literature relative to each category, resulting in a summary table.

5.    A holistic conception of school processes

The basic idea is to verify the extent to which embedding works and can function as a structuring element in a discourse of co-construction within educational institutions, capable of highlighting their holistic nature as socio-ecological systems (Ostinelli, 2023). The expectation is that educational institutions that integrate communities of practice, coaching, leadership, etc. organically in their practice as professional learning communities will be able to ideally perform embedding of educational research results and evidence in their daily practice.

The inquiry is carried out using education-relevant databases and search engines, including Google Scholar and ERIC. The target of the search are articles published in educational reviews, research reports, chapters in books and unpublished conference papers in English language. This search is performed through keywords like ‘Coaching in education’, ‘Professional learning communities’, ‘Leadership in schools’, ‘Embedding educational research results in schools’, including the terms ‘education’, ‘school’, ‘instruction’ and excluding keywords like ‘medicine’, ‘psychology’ or ‘social work’. The option ‘related articles’ in Google is widely used, and the bibliography of the selected papers is also a source for finding other papers. The criteria for relevance are the following (1) reference to the category (e.g.: professional learning community, coaching, action research, etc.) (2) empirical characteristics of the study; (3) methodological soundness.

The conclusions of the study should be useful, first and foremost, in gaining a better understanding of the category of professional learning communities and their possible relationships with practices such as coaching, mentoring, leadership and the use of communities of practice. In a holistic context, in which the school is expressed as a socio-ecological organism, the coordinated and targeted management of these practices should result in better embedding of the results and evidence coming from educational research. This holds in particular with regard to improvement of students' outcomes and to the professional development of teachers, which is a key point, in an adequate professional growth for coping with a constantly changing reality.

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