Annual Report 2014, Porto

Minutes from NW 30, ESER network meeting Sep 3rd, ECER 2014 in Porto, Portugal

50 participants from 13 countries
Everybody introduced themselves

Introduction of the ESER development history, ECER 2014 and NW 30 facts and figures, program planning and the review process.

In-between times (between two ECER conferences)

• Alan Reid, Monash University informed that EER contains many forms for example special issues, new theses and mini-collections. Come up with proposals!
• Editorial events – who is on different editorial boards (let others know!)
• Should the ESER network be on social media, a face book group or academia.edu? Social network can be helpful to show what research others are following. N.B. there might be copyright issues.
• Facilitate collaboration between PhD students. A doctoral school before or after the ECER conference. Emerging conference (ECER) – should have targeted workshop on ‘our’ ESE issues.
• Summer schools. PhD students funding? There is EU support. Publications make it easier to get funding.

ESER Management

• We need criteria for the network process (management).
• Need for rules for the conduct of the (network meeting).
• Look for guidance from other networks and bring to the next meeting. For example AERA (American Educational Research Association) has a formal process chair, program chairs. They have a small member fee to go away on a fieldtrip. The chair is elected for one year, if you have been a program chair. Elected during the business meeting.
• Next year – elect the link-convenor and core group members (probably have to wait to the ECER conference after Budapest when all formalities are set).
• More core group members? The gender issue - there are too few women in the core group!
• Is the review group enough or do we need more people? This year the reviewers participating in the network meeting said it was OK but for the future we need maybe to have more. We need to have some basic criteria for selecting additional reviewers.
• Review process criteria - new author guide lines?
• Quality vs inclusion. Higher quality standards (tougher criteria) can lead to decrease in the number of presentations but can also attract more senior researcher. We should not assume quality and acceptance limits will lead to fewer people trying to get in! There are experiences from other ECER networks showing this.

Core-group will give suggestions to all these management issues during this autumn for the management of the network and a frame/template for the network meeting, and also review the author guide lines. There will also be developed some basic criteria for new reviewers.


Towards the next ECER in Budapest 2015 - Ideas for development themes

• Connect with the ECER main theme in Budapest (Education and Transition- Contributions from Educational Research).We need to position ourselves in relation to the theme of ‘Transition’, for example: ‘Transition towards sustainable living’

Other themes mentioned during the meeting:

• Challenges for society
• Research ‘for’ (about normativity)
• How can research support, have impact on X (different urgent matters)
• Mapping the research base for ESE

These could all be possible symposiums or directed workshops.

AERA SIG (special interest group) invites a speaker.
This is not possible according to earlier requests to EERA, but I (Per) saw in the 2014 conference program that there are other networks inviting own speakers.  This could be a good opening session in Budapest. Suggestions to the link-convener!

Comments from the audience:

• The theoretical philosophical work is important together with the practical empirical work- the mix is important for the network identity!
• Collaborations with other NW:s
• Feedback on the review process 2014? Was it helpful in preparing your presentations? Many voices on the meeting - Yes, very supportive! Comments from the reviewers are highly appreciated and are expected in the next review process.
• Forcing the venue in Budapest to be more environmentally concerned!

September 10th 2014

Summary by Per and Louise Sund, Mälardalen University