Annual Report 2007, Ghent

The conference in Gent 2007 was another step forward for network 10. We had many high quality presentations, most of which had good attendance. We also arranged the first network dinner - gathering around 20 people for dinner, it turned out to be a fun and entertaining evening with singing and playing - from now on this will be a annual event! Again, thanks a lot to the local organizers, Isabel and Antonia. 

Previously, the work of reviewing proposals has fallen on a small group of between one and three conveners. This year a group of eight reviewers was set up. All papers were reviewed by two people and in case of diverging evaluation, the link-convener made the final decision. TER received 85 proposals, out of these seven were rejected and four were re-directed. We also received four or five proposals from other networks.

Reasons for rejecting proposals were:

• not relevant for TER
• narrow national scope
• poor scientific foundations
• research question is vague or missing and
• weak relation between research question and methodology.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of work capacity we have not been able to follow up all proposals - asking for revisions or having proposers re-submit. From 2008, with the new web-based conference tool, where all submissions and the review are done electronically, there will be opportunities for corresponding more efficiently with proposers.  

We did not manage to set up all our intended symposia this year, but with two roundtables which were both cross-network, we were very happy with what was accomplished overall. After we had set up the 2007 program some presenters had to withdraw, this is, of course, unfortunate for the program and the possibility of coherence and good discussion within the different sessions. Even so, many presenters reported that they had very good sessions and that papers fitted well together, with good discussion. Some new collaboration between researchers was organized as a consequence of this - we hope these connections will proceed and that new research within our field might emerge. There was also this year a small number of no-shows in our network. This is taken seriously by EERA and a black-list of these presenters is made.

The network held a meeting on the Thursday of the conference. The meeting was well attended. Several issues were addressed at the meeting. One important issue was the announced special issue of EERJ addressing the theme: What are contested qualities in teacher education which are relevant for education today? Deadline for the issue has now passed and 15 papers have been submitted, appointed editors for the issue are Marit H. Hoveid (netw.10) and Jim Conroy (Glasgow Univ, netw. 13.) 

Also Jim McBrian stepped down as a convenor for network 10, a well earned thanks to him. Six new convenors were elected: Peter Gray (University of Stirling, UK), Rosie Turner-Bisset (University of Middlesex, UK), Kennert Orlenius (University of Skovde, Sweden), Isabel Rots (University of Gent), Martin Kunz University of Hamburg, Germany), Maria Figueiredo (Polytechnic of Viseu, School of Education, Portugal). We are very happy with the expansion of the group and also with its pan-European profile. 

Preparations for next year's conference are already under way. We would like to invite people to organize symposiums, roundtable discussions or research workshops in addition to the more traditional paper presentations at the conference. If anyone is interested, but does not know who to contact, please contact the link-convenor at marith(at)hifm.no 

Hope that you find opportunities to engage in some of the discussions on research in teacher education that will take place in Gothenburg in September 2008. 

Looking forward to seeing you all in Sweden !