Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of knowledge mobilisation by universities in England. It first provides an introduction to the capacity of the education systems and the research structures, capacity and quality measures in the UK more generally. It then describes knowledge mobilisation issues in education in England, as one part of the UK – first in terms of recent historical developments since the 1990s, then in relation to new methods to enable accessing of research evidence, then new initiatives for using research, and finally describing new schemes to encourage the impact of research.

The UK has undergone considerable change in the last 10 years in its educational policies and in an interest in evidence-informed policy and practice. Many of these developments were stimulated by a New Labour government elected in 1997. In the Spring of 2010 a new Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition was elected, which has embarked on its own radical reform agenda. It is not possible to describe all of these developments in this chapter. Discussion of some of the changes up to 2009 can be found in the country pages of the Strategic Forum for Research Evidence website; more recent developments can be found in the education pages of the national media.

UK governance, population and education

The UK is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is a single democratic entity, yet contains four countries, and there are devolved national administrations with varying powers, policies and resources in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK is a member state of the European Union (EU). The UK has a population of 62 million, of whom about 20% are under the age of 16. The majority of the UK population lives in England, with approximately 5 million living in Scotland, 3 million in Wales and 1.7 million in Northern Ireland.

The UK population has increased by 8% over the last 20 years. In 2010 the working population was 38 million, made up of 23.8 million employees, 3.8 million self employed, 2.4 million unemployed and 8.2 million economically inactive.

UK education

In 2009/10 there were 9.7 million full-time and part-time pupils in 33,137 schools. In 2008/09 there were 520,800 full-time qualified teachers in the UK.