Research on learning and well-being in primary schools

Description of the theme

The politically determined agreement states that “DKK 34.6 million has been allocated to DFF with the purpose of strengthening practice-oriented research and to provide new knowledge on learning and well-being in primary schools.

The primary school covers the part of the school system that teaches school-aged children, i.e. the nine year long primary school course as well as preschool class and 10th grade. The research can concern teaching, learning and well-being in relation to public as well as private schooling.

The funds must, amongst other things, support application-oriented research aimed at ways for inclusive learning environments that can support the transformation process towards a more inclusive primary school, and research on how digitalisation and screen use affect pupils’ learning processes and outputs as well as well-being. Furthermore, the funds must support research on mathematics difficulties and dyscalculia. At the same time, the initiative must contribute to supporting a strengthened foundation of knowledge for the teacher education by fostering a closer connection between the research, the content of the teacher’s education, and primary school practice.

The initiative can also support research in sustainable didactics, pedagogy, and teaching (i.e. in relation to climate related sustainability, etc.). Furthermore, it can support research in inequality between genders related to, among other things, learning, well-being, and choice of education.”

DFF requires that applications for this theme are practice-oriented projects, i.e. research aimed at solving specific problems in real situations and that involves collaboration between researchers and practice to develop knowledge that is both theoretically founded and practically applicable. Practice-oriented research can be conducted using different methods pertaining to the local and specific practice that the research concerns. DFF does not hold a specific definition of which methods should be used to conduct practice-oriented research, and the call is open for theoretical and empirical practice-oriented projects. In the appendix to you project description, you must account for how the project is oriented towards practice and argue for the relevance of the project for the specific practice area that it concerns. The project should to the greatest extent possible include collaboration with relevant actors from practice before, during and after the project so that the results of the research can be embedded and applied – and thereby potentially change – the practice area. Examples of relevant actors could be authorities (e.g., municipalities), educational institutions, or professionals and leaders that work within the specific practice area.

It is possible to apply for research projects within a budgetary framework of up to DKK 5,000,000 excluding overhead/administration expenses. Within the upper budget limit of DKK 5,000,000 excluding overhead/administration expenses, research projects of various sizes can be applied for and granted.

The following theme-specific requirements apply to your application:

• Your application must be practice-oriented research and include collaboration with a relevant practice area as described above. Please be aware of the additional assessment criterion in section 4 of the thematic Call for Proposals.
• In the appendix to your project description, you must account for the ways in which your application addresses the call’s theme of learning and well-being in primary schools as well as how it meets the requirement on practice-oriented research.

Applicant and Co-PI

The project must be lead by an applicant and a named Co-PI. The applicant is main responsible towards the fund in the event of a grant.

As applicant as well as Co-PI you must have obtained a PhD degree (or similar qualifications, e.g. positive assistant professorship evaluation) at the time of the application deadline. Both the applicant’s and the Co-PI’s previous results will be assessed in relation to their career path and in relation to the scientific challenges of the project applied for. If you, as the applicant, are not an associate professor and have not been awarded a positive associate professor assessment (“lektorbedømmelse”) and the project involves the education of researchers, you must account for how the relevant supervision will be provided, and how the research student’s scientific association to the project will be ensured.

The applicant and the Co-PI must enter into a relevant and binding collaboration on a joint research project. The distribution of roles between the applicant and the Co-PI in the research project must appear clearly from the application.

Application requirements

The research project must be run by multiple researchers, including both an applicant and a Co-PI. DFF emphasises that the research project involves, e.g., PhD students and postdoctoral candidates to a relevant extent.

The research project must be characterised as being a coordinated and mutually binding collaboration on a well-defined research question. The research activities must establish synergy among any sub-projects.

The research project must be of a high, international standard and involve international collaboration to a relevant extent. If the research project is embedded in a specific, local context, it is expected that the project argues for the potentially limited internationalisation. In all cases, DFF expects applications to relate to the international state of the art within their area.

You can apply for funding for embedded PhD and postdoctoral scholarships, if these are well integrated into the project and fulfil a clear, independent function within the research project. Embedded postdoctoral candidates must have obtained their PhD or achieved equivalent qualifications, e.g., a positive assistant professorship evaluation (”adjunktbedømmelse”), within the last 4 years at the time of the application deadline. Periods of leave must be deducted (see section 5.3.5 in the thematic Call for Proposals). If a named postdoctoral candidate is a PhD student at the time of application, the application must include a declaration from the student’s supervisor, stating that the student is expected to submit the PhD thesis within 6 months after the application deadline. If the application includes requests for funding for unnamed PhD students and/or unnamed postdoc candidates, the application must include an account of the proposed recruitment process.

There must be a sufficiently balanced relationship between the roles of all listed project participants (scientific/academic staff, technical/administrative staff, and whether funded or not), and the concrete role of the participants must be accounted for and justified.