New connections and directions for educational research

In 2025, the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) invites delegates to consider the conference theme ‘New Connections and Directions for Educational Research’. As we continue to adapt to a rapidly changing world and to major reforms across education sectors nationally and internationally, What new connections can and should be made? What new directions can and should we pursue?

As Australia’s peak national professional association for educational research, the AARE annual conference has long been an important space where connections are forged and solidified. This year, the idea of ‘connections’ speaks to the way the conference offers an opportunity to connect:

• The past to the present as we seek to change the future;
• Theories, methodologies, disciplines, sectors, and organisations that have often been separated despite shared goals;
• Colleagues from around the world – students, teachers, academics and others, across the career spectrum.

At the same time, the focus on ‘directions’ offers a chance to explore and advance discussions about the future of educational research and the educational sector more broadly. What’s needed next amid the myriad reforms in early childhood, school, vocational and higher education? We seek rigorous evidence and thoughtful argument to inform debate about all educational matters. Knowing that science is unsettled, we need new angles, new explorations, and new ways of thinking as we undertake research and scholarship in education to enhance practice, processes and policy at all levels.

The theme also gestures to the conference being held in the beautiful city of Newcastle, on the traditional lands of the Awabakal and Worimi peoples. The main venue for the conference will be NUspace, the University of Newcastle’s landmark education precinct in the heart of Newcastle's CBD.

The Call for Papers will encourage researchers to creatively build new connections as we explore and interrogate the directions in which we want to head, individually and collectively. This deliberately broad brief welcomes all education researchers, and colleagues interested in our work, to consider what’s next for educational research.

Jenny Gore, President

Sally Patfield & Wendy Taggart, Co-Chairs, Conferences Standing Committee