A consortium of Australian education institutions have been awarded a $16 million grant to establish a Science of Learning Research Centre, designed to improve teaching across Australia and around the world.

Led by the University of Queensland in conjunction with the University of Melbourne and the Australian Council for Education Research, will launch the centre later this year.

UQ’s Professor Ottmar Lipp, who will lead the centre, said it would bring together researchers from education, neuroscience and cognitive psychology to investigate the very nature of the human learning process.

“We will work together with teachers in the field to further our understanding of learning and the conditions that facilitate it,” Professor Lipp said. 
“Ultimately we want to provide an evidence base for educational practise and create outcomes that benefit learners in Australia and elsewhere. 
“This collaboration will establish new criteria to assess the impact of different types of learning and strategies to inform teaching practices,” he said. 

The creation of the Centre is one of the key recommendations of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council Expert Working Group report.

Professor Lipp said the centre would involve 27 researchers in Australia and overseas, including 11 from UQ. 
“Australian collaborators are based at UQ, the Centre for Educational Research (ACER) and The University of Melbourne, as well as at Deakin, Flinders, Charles Darwin, New England, and Macquarie universities,” he said. 

 UQ Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice-President (Research) Professor Max Lu said he believed the centre would lead to "breakthrough science that would underpin a new paradigm for learning and teaching at all levels, from early childhood to adult education". 
"It will also provide research opportunities tapping into the rich data and powerful tools associated with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the future to advance learning analytics, possibly resulting in revolutionary personalised educational methods," Professor Lu said.