Improving the quality of education has become a central global priority, as reflected in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 on inclusive and equitable quality education. To achieve this goal, research evidence has increasingly been positioned as central to educational decision-making and school improvement. A recent UNESCO flagship report explicitly urges policymakers to ‘use solid and reliable data and evidence to ensure that countries progress towards their education targets’ (Steiner-Khamsi et al., 2024). Globally, governments, organisations, and schools have developed evidence infrastructures, training, and roles, such as What Works centres, research charities, professional networks, and school-based champions, to promote research engagement.

However, efforts to promote evidence-informed education have been met with persistent critiques and resistance. One concern is that evidence-based approaches may restrict teachers’ professional discretion and undermine the democratic purposes of schooling by privileging external sources of authority (Holloway & Larsen Hedegaard, 2023). Others have questioned the trustworthiness and applicability of what works evidence in education, noting the uneven quality of available research resources and the risks of oversimplification, misinterpretation, or limited external validity (Allen, 2013; Carrier, 2017; Test et al., 2015). These critiques highlight that access to evidence alone is insufficient, and point to the need for promising approaches that support teachers and policymakers in engaging with research evidence in informed, context-sensitive ways.

This symposium brings together four papers: a large-scale international systematic review, experimental studies conducted in England and China, and a study from Brazil. The symposium begins with a large-scale systematic review on how research evidence is used in education and wider public policy. The review highlights the limited robust evidence on effective strategies for supporting evidence use and identifies two dimensions of evidence use (format and dissemination approach) that help frame later experimental work. These insights provide a shared conceptual point of reference for the studies presented in this symposium.

Papers two and three report randomised controlled trials conducted in China and England, examining the feasibility and effectiveness of a use-of-research-evidence intervention that involved facilitated workshops and the provision of structured evidence summaries. Paper 2 (China) presents, to our knowledge, the first published evaluation of the impact of teachers’ use of research evidence in Chinese primary schools. Paper 3 (England) examines a similar intervention in England. It also reports findings from web crawling and large language modelling on current patterns of evidence use in Pupil Premium funding allocation. Paper four presents evidence-informed policy/decision-making in Brazil, based on iPIPS data collected between 2017 and 2022 in two cities. In total, over 8,000 children were assessed, and the major findings were transformed into booklets to enhance the use of research evidence.

The symposium concludes by reflecting on what can be learned from examining evidence use at different stages of development across national contexts, shaped by distinct policy environments and teaching needs. Bringing together findings from Brazil, China, and England, the discussion highlights both shared challenges and contextual variation in how research evidence is accessed, interpreted and enacted in practice. Across contexts, recurring issues include the importance of teachers’ skills in engaging with evidence and the availability of high-quality, trustworthy research. Meanwhile, the symposium raises further questions about how the structures and processes of evidence use can be better designed to support the effective implementation of research evidence.

Allen, R. (2013). Evidence-based practice: why number-crunching tells only part of the story. IOE London Blog. ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/evidence-based-practice-why-number-crunching-tells-only-part-of-thestory. Carrier, N. (2017). How educational ideas catch on: the promotion of popular education innovations and the role of evidence. Educational Research, 59(2), 228–240. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2017.1310418 Holloway, J., & Larsen Hedegaard, M. L. (2023). Democracy and teachers: The im/possibilities for pluralisation in evidence-based practice. Journal of Education Policy, 38(3), 432–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2021.2014571 Steiner-Khamsi, G., Faul, M. V., Baek, C., Hopkins, A. N., & Iwabuchi, K. (2024). Improving the use of evidence for education policy, planning and implementation: Strategic review. Test, D. W., Kemp-Inman, A., Diegelmann, K., Hitt, S. B., & Bethune, L. (2015). Are online sources for identifying evidence-based practices trustworthy? An evaluation. Exceptional Children, 82(1), 58–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014402915585477