Call for proposals

The European Investment Bank Institute proposes a new EIBURS sponsorship under its Knowledge Programme

(2021/C 380/04)

The Knowledge Programme of the European Investment Bank Institute channels its research grants through different schemes, one of which is:

EIBURS provides grants to university departments or research centres associated with universities in the European Union, candidate or potential candidate countries working on research topics of major interest to the Bank. EIBURS sponsorships – of up to EUR 100 000 per year for a period of three years – are awarded through a competitive process to interested university departments or research centres with recognised expertise in the selected area. Successful proposals entail the delivery of a variety of outputs that will be the subject of a contractual agreement with the European Investment Bank.

For the academic year 2021/2022, the EIBURS programme is seeking proposals on a new research theme:

‘The future of schooling: harnessing the potential of digital education technology’

Digital technology, when deployed skilfully, equitably and effectively by educators, can fully support the agenda of high-quality and inclusive education and training for all learners. It can facilitate more personalised, flexible and student-centred learning at all phases and stages of education and training. Technology can be a powerful and engaging tool for collaborative and creative learning. It can help learners and educators access, create and share digital content. It can also allow learning to take place beyond the walls of the lecture hall, classroom or workplace, providing more freedom from the constraints of physical location and timetable. Learning can happen in a fully online or blended mode, at a time, place and pace suited to the needs of the individual learner. (1)

Despite the high potential that digital technology has to enhance learning, the education sector is significantly underdigitised compared to other sectors, with less than 4 % of its overall expenditure worldwide allocated to hardware, software and technology-enabled services (2). With the COVID-19 pandemic and the forced sudden shift to emergency remote learning and teaching, the use of digital tools in education accelerated significantly and their relevance increased. However, distance instruction during COVID-related school closures exposed stark shortcomings with regard to the digital readiness of education systems. Leaving aside the limitations in terms of access to the basic requirements for remote learning, such as high-speed internet and digital devices, the pandemic showed that, even when these tools were available, in most countries the use of digital technology did not enhance traditional learning. The most prevalent obstacles to effective remote learning reported during school closures in spring 2020 were the limited availability of digital educational resources and the lack of digital skills, both for the teachers to integrate digital approaches into teaching and learning and for the learners to use information and communications technology (ICT) as a means of acquiring knowledge and managing their learning. (3)

Moving forward, the pandemic might accelerate the take-up of digital technology in education. Many experts see effective deployment of digital technology in the classroom as a key element of the efforts to build education systems back better than pre-crisis in order to make up for the loss in learning. (4) However, to achieve this goal, substantial investments are needed. The cost of equipping schools across the European Union with basic digital technology and ensuring maintenance and operation of networks and devices over a period of five years is estimated to be EUR 29,7 billion. (5) Additionally, it is worth bearing in mind that the type and design of technological tools and platforms, as well as the digital pedagogy used, impact directly on whether individuals are included or excluded from learning. In order to ensure an efficient allocation of the resources in the sector, it is important to extract the lessons learned from the current large-scale remote learning worldwide experience and understand what works to improve learning.

The research activities proposed in this document aim to investigate concretely the potential of digital education technology to improve the quality of education and promote learning, starting from an assessment of the current situation in European countries.

This proposal is fully aligned with the EIB’s public policy goal ‘Innovation, Digital and Human Capital’ and with the European Commission’s Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027. Given the key role that education plays in promoting social cohesion, economic growth and innovation, the findings from this research can promote the European Union’s recovery after the crisis and develop its resilience to future crises.

Research proposals should contain a strategy to address the following elements:

1.   Analysis of the penetration of digital technology in the education sector

2.   Mapping of digital education technologies in EU education systems

3.   Development of a costing tool

4.   Impact evaluations

The research partner is encouraged to propose complementary research questions, topics and research methodologies that strengthen the overall analysis, as long as the main four items are included.

Proposals should be submitted in English by 15 November 2021 at 24:00 (CET). Proposals submitted after this date will not be considered. Proposals should be sent by email to:

Events.EIBInstitute@eib.org

For more exhaustive information on the EIBURS selection process and on the EIB Institute, please visit: http://institute.eib.org/

(1)  European Union’s Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027.

(2)  10 charts that explain the Global Education Technology market – HolonIQ

(3)  See for example: ‘ILO-UNESCO-WBG Joint Survey on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Skills Development during the time of COVID-19’, as well as the Representative Survey among 1 031 German teachers in the period 2-8 April 2020. https://deutsches-schulportal.de/unterricht/das-deutsche-schulbarometer-spezial-corona-krise/

(4)  Hanushek and Woessmann (2020), ‘The Economic Impacts of Learning Losses’.

(5)  Considering that the European Union has 24,5 million primary school students and 36 million secondary school students, and using the per-student costs estimated in Bertelsmann Foundation (2017): IT equipment in schools. Municipalities need support for multi-billion continuous task