About ROC

Our objectives

  • To create new understandings of effective learning, teaching and assessment in schools.
  • To develop systems and tools that promote positive and collaborative system change within educational institutions and across educational practices to enhance attainment and build educational equity
  • To establish robust and collaboratively generated evidence for stakeholders that promotes improved leadership practices, outcomes, curricula, assessment processes, classroom pedagogies and relationships in schools and their communities.
  • To have a successful impact on international, national and local educational policies in accordance with new knowledge and validated transformations in educational practice.

Our approach

Established in 2014, the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change (ROC) aims to promote more equitable education systems, experiences and outcomes through research that is underpinned by a commitment to social justice and lifelong learning.

ROC takes its name and original impetus from the example of Robert Owen (1771-1858) who, in his journey from industrial philanthropy to radical activism, came to see popular educational reform as the key to social renewal and equality. He exemplified these beliefs in his renowned educational innovations at the village of New Lanark in Scotland.

From this inspiration, ROC locates its work today chiefly within a place-based understanding of education. This is where community, organisation and institutional provision meet in effective models of partnership working, distributed leadership and participant empowerment.

How we work

ROC has three main areas of activity:

  1. Network for Social and Educational Equity (NSEE)
  2. University of Glasgow Educational Assessment Network (UGEAN)
  3. Investing in place-based approaches to support childrens' hollistic development e.g Children's Neighbourhoods Scotland (CNS)

The centre has a strong commitment to working with professionals from multiple and diverse educational practice backgrounds to develop local and embedded approaches that make a tangible difference to the life chances of learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.