The Educated Brain: From the Neuroscience to the Practice of Lifelong Learning

'The Educated Brain' does not develop as a mind in a vat - it is subject to a myriad of interactions with its environment that shape future trajectories as part of a dynamic feedback loop. The proposed seminar series will examine how interactions between brain and environment give rise to the diverse experiences of the human condition, and how to make sense of this research in terms of policy and practice in educational settings.

Recent changes to policies for health, social care and education reflect the complexity of supporting individuals for optimal outcomes, in whatever diverse set of circumstances they may grow up. Educational neuroscience stands at the intersection between natural science and social science, and provides a promising avenue for understanding the human condition from a holistic perspective. This seminar series aims to bring together a variety of stakeholders, including researchers in educational/cognitive neuroscience, teachers and policy-makers to understand theoretical issues as well as policy and practice implications.

This bid is unique in that it is supported and coordinated by three University of Cambridge Strategic Research Initiatives (SRIs): Cambridge Neuroscience, Cambridge Public Policy and Cambridge Language Sciences. The University funds these SRIs; their mission is to promote dialogue between scientists of all disciplines, stimulate innovative thinking and catalyse the formation of new interdisciplinary partnerships for novel research and creative thinking. Researchers across several different departments in Cambridge study many different aspects of learning, including typical and atypical brain development. They combine expertise from a variety of disciplines, including psychology, education, languages and linguistics, medicine and physics. The SRIs have already successfully brought together many different teams of researchers across departments: Psychiatry, Psychology, Education, Linguistics and the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Unit. For example, Cambridge Neuroscience has successfully run three ESRC-funded events (a professional development workshop in science policy, a speed networking event and a neuroethics panel discussion on the subject of cognitive enhancement in the classroom), bringing together researchers from these particular departments and units. It was the initial enthusiasm garnered from these events that led to the current proposal.

Dialogue on 'The Educated Brain' has tended to be initiated by a handful of research groups in the UK who see themselves as doing BOTH education and neuroscience. Others, who identify more strongly in one of those disciplines, should also contribute. The seminar series will broaden the dialogue to include experts from within the University, other academic institutions (UK and international), policy, and practice. There will be a significant public policy training element targeted at early career researchers and practitioners, who will be mentored by mid-to-advanced career professionals with experience working with policy-makers.

The PIs are in regular contact with teachers/head-teachers through teaching/research and are well placed to implement the seminar series in a broadly inclusive way reflecting the complexity of brain development and education. The seminar series will be supported by coordinators of three University of Cambridge SRIs: Cambridge Neuroscience, Cambridge Public Policy and Cambridge Language Sciences, who can each reach out to professionals affiliated to their research networks and expand our reach. Together, we will run three research seminars to disseminate cutting edge educational neuroscience findings from international experts to inter-disciplinary audiences from within/outside of academia and five policy workshops designed to provide initial training in policy writing, mentorship and writing support of policy briefs and opportunities to share these briefs and discussions with policy makers.

'The Educated Brain' seminar series focuses on three stages of 'Lifelong Learning' designed to offer a range of important potential research impacts across policy, interventions and practice. For example, in infancy and early childhood: food and nutrition, role of environment in early childhood, early life experiences in brain development, rote learning versus play and school readiness; in late childhood and adolescence: project-based learning versus decision-making, stress and deprivation, resilience, peer relationships, ADHD, autism; in adulthood and ageing: personalised training; workplace training; dementia. PIs and other academics involved in the seminar series have considerable experience of engaging with stakeholder organisations. The seminar series will build on these existing strong links to engage teachers, practitioners and other stakeholders.

Outputs and Outcomes

Reports and Academic Publications: We will seek to publish the papers from the series as a special issue or monograph. We will build on good dialogue that exists in Cambridge between researchers, teachers and educators (more than 400 teachers train at the University of Cambridge each year) and the policy community by making reports published from the seminar series accessible and widely available, for example as on-line resources. We establish an on-line forum for neuroscientists, education specialists and other stakeholders to be able to exchange information and resources throughout the seminar series.

Public Engagement: Outcomes from the policy workshops focused will be aimed more generally at the wider community and we will use established annual programmes at Cambridge to this end (e.g., Science Festival, Festival of Ideas). Participating academics have given high profile public lectures (e.g. British Science Festival, Open University meetings, practitioner societies) and spoken to international media outlets (e.g. Radio 4 Today, BBC breakfast, Time, Guardian, Discover Magazine, Naked Scientists, Australian Broadcasting Corp, Canadian Broadcasting Corp.).

Policy Engagement: Academics working in this field at Cambridge have already demonstrated their experience of engaging with policy. Recent examples include: L Tyler presenting on ageing to the OECD, C Hughes' new 'school readiness' questionnaire for teachers commissioned by Frank Field MP (funded by the Westminster Foundation and Foundation Years Trust) and extensive references to S Gathercole's work in the 2009 Rose Report on Dyslexia. The Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) at the University possesses an extensive network amongst policy makers and practitioners in Whitehall and elsewhere. CSaP will mobilise this network to ensure effective and robust knowledge exchange between this project and policy makers. The CSaP Policy Workshop Programme represents a tried and tested formula for bringing policymakers and practitioners from across relevant governmental organisations together with researchers, the third sector, and industry, allowing highly effective knowledge exchange and network building. The existing CSaP network has strong connections to departments which will be interested in the outcome of this bid, meaning that suitable policymakers will be found to inform the planned workshops. The workshops will convene intensive and focused discussion among a core group of researchers and policy makers that will help shape the research and ensure it addresses policy and practice needs. We will produce accessible materials from the Policy Workshop, in particular a Policy Brief, to communicate with wider policy makers and stakeholders. Overall, the seminar series aims to have policy impact both in terms of drawing together latest research in the area to be able to inform policy, by bringing in policy makers to early discussions in the series, facilitating dialogue with policy makers and understanding/engaging with the policy making process.