Practice and research together for better starting opportunities

The research association for the scientific support of the StartChances program has started its work. The aim is for the schools involved in the program and their control and support system to benefit comprehensively from scientific expertise.

The StartChances program, funded by the federal and state governments with 20 billion euros for ten years and launched on August 1, 2024, will use a groundbreaking approach to decouple educational success from social background and ensure more equal opportunities. To this end, it systematically supports around 4,000 schools in socially challenging locations.

“It is absolutely right and certainly visionary that the StartChances program aims to halve the proportion of children and young people who do not achieve the minimum standards in basic skills.” The program is unique in its focus because it addresses schools as a whole. “It is also about the further development of schools and teaching, but very importantly also about the interaction with all actors in the control and support system and the social environment,” says Prof. Dr. Kai Maaz from DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Educational Information, the overall coordinator of the research network that has now been launched.

Maaz emphasizes: “With scientific support, we want to best support this networked approach, which builds on existing structures and addresses and integrates all relevant actors.” It is important to contribute our knowledge at all levels so that innovative and productive forms the collaboration between practice, administration and research. However, it will take time, comprehensive exchange and a lot of work to ensure that all the wheels mesh effectively.”

The network for scientific support and research for the StartChances program is primarily aimed at the support systems of schools in socially challenging situations. These include, for example, the school authorities, the municipalities, the school supervisory authorities, the administration in the ministries and the state institutes. The network will contribute its evidence-based expertise, using and incorporating the needs, knowledge and experiences of everyone. The goal is cooperation at eye level and mutual learning from one another.

A central component of the work will be to develop binding and constructive cooperation formats together with the actors in the control and support system and to build up new control knowledge. The goal is a governance structure that activates and interlinks all resources collaboratively and efficiently. A further focus will be on concepts and materials for school and teaching development as well as for working in networks. These should be put together in a purpose-oriented manner, interlinked with initial approaches and new or further developed based on research. In addition, the network will advise and further qualify educational specialists and multipliers who are active, for example, in comprehensive professional networks. The materials and further training will relate to specialist fields such as language education and mathematics, to interdisciplinary topics such as problem solving and team work, as well as to social space-related and multi-professional organizational development. All concepts and structures should be thought of sustainably and benefit all schools in the future.

The network includes a total of 20 scientific institutes and universities with a broad professional background. An expanded management group consists of researchers from the DIPF, the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the IPN – Leibniz Institute for the Education of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Mercator Institute for Language Development and German as a Second Language, and the University of Duisburg-Essen , the University of Mannheim and the University of Potsdam. As the headquarters of overall coordination, the DIPF is also responsible for developing digital solutions for collaborative work and communicating the results. The coordination team at DIPF also includes Dr. Martina Diedrich, previously director of the Institute for Educational Monitoring and Quality Development (IfBQ) in Hamburg. The highly qualified system developer, who is very experienced in negotiation processes between the states and the federal government, will significantly enrich the design of the association and lead the planned governance center. The network, which, like the StartChances program, will run for ten years, is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research with around 100 million euros.

The work of the network will be organized in close cooperation with the actors in schools and support systems in five competence centers, two transfer and transformation hubs and a governance center. The Governance Center focuses on innovative control approaches and cooperation formats. In the competence centers, among other things, materials and qualifications are developed, while the transfer and transformation hubs initiate and support exchange and coordination processes. The network will also continuously coordinate with the scientific committee responsible for evaluating the StartChances program and its results. In addition, further potential should be developed in order to optimize project work.

Further information about the scientific support of the StartChances program and the program as a whole can be found here.