“I urge you to help us make this the largest survey ever completed about education research.

Let us hope that, armed with the new knowledge that the analyses of the survey data will bring, we will be even better placed to advocate for positive change for all those who work in education research.”

Dominic Wyse, BERA president

The HE Education Research Census is a UK-wide project designed to understand university-based education researchers in 2022. Research in education has multiple frontiers and communities, working in and across diverse settings and fora. There are many forms of research and scholarship taking place in education. In short, it is a complex and evolving discipline.

About the Survey

The project is funded by BERA (British Education Research Association) and is led by Dr Rebecca Morris and Dr Tom Perry at the University of Warwick, in collaboration with Birmingham City University. It benefits from an extensive advisory group from a range of different universities, career stages and research areas.

Sitting at the intersection between a census and a survey, this project has been designed to explore a wide range of themes, including questions about identity, research methods, workload, REF and organisational culture. These themes have been formed in response to current literature as well as the findings of the BERA 2021 Scoping Review, and are being explored across BERA’s State of the Discipline project.

The census is designed to capture the conditions, environment, nature and issues within education research within the UK. Better understanding all members of the education research community, their motivations, contexts and experiences is of enormous value for developing and supporting the discipline. This evidence is vital to being able to make recommendations for better policy and practice in the future.

We need your help!

It is critical that we are able to gather as many responses as possible from researchers across all four nations in the UK. Doing so will enable us to gather significant and novel empirical evidence from those who work in education research in Higher Education.  

Thank you for supporting this research. Here’s how you can help:

• Share the survey link with your colleagues in your department, university and networks.
• Click the link just below to complete the survey yourself. It will take you about 15 minutes, including the small number of open questions. There is also an optional section at the end, for anyone who wants to share more detailed reflections.
• Get in touch with us if you want to contribute by writing a blog or sharing this survey in your community.

We hope that you will find this to be a useful exercise and that it provides you with the opportunity to share your valuable perspectives and experiences. We look forward to sharing the results with you in due course.