Brian Hudson served as Network 27’s first link convenor. He was very successful in promoting cooperation amongst educational researchers, especially between researchers in English speaking countries in Europe, where didactics is often not a university or higher education discipline, and researchers in continental European, where it is.
Brian has been outstanding at finding a balance between the English speaking and publishing colleagues working in the fields of instruction research, curriculum theory and implementation, subject research such as mathematics, physics, foreign language education, in primary and secondary education etc. on the one side, and the continental didacticians on the other side.
Brian’s position concerning methods and theory of educational research is based on the conviction that fragmentation, as it characterizes the present situation of didactics/instructional research etc. in Europe, has to be overcome. He has managed to convince us that a state of research beyond fragmentation is a sound objective.
The broad and high acceptance of Brian’s approach toward research in our network is documented in an impressive list of publications and of works in progress, all made possible by Brian’s combination of communicative competence with his willingness to find compromises.
Brian’s competence in educational management and educational policy can also be seen in the expansion of his activities as head of the WERA IRN on Didactics, Learning and Teaching. Brian has successfully integrated the work of EERA’s Network 27 into the WERA (World Education Research Association) programme.