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Background

The Affiliated Schools Program, a partnership between the ������Ƶ (������Ƶ) and the ACT Government's Education Directorate since 2019, is underpinned by a shared vision for innovation, research, and teacher professional development.

Aims and Scope

The Affiliated Schools Research Program:

• Fosters research towards system and school improvement through the development and evaluation of evidence‐based enhancements to student learning and well‐being, teaching practice and educational policy
• Is aligned to the including:
  • Inclusive Education: A Disability Inclusion Strategy for ACT Public Schools;
  • Set-up for Success: An Early Childhood Strategy for the ACT
  • Strategic Plan
  • Strong Foundations

Projects will:

• Leverage the strengths and address the unique needs of ACT Government schools
• Address the strategic priorities of the ACT Government
• Involve collaborations between ������Ƶ Faculty of Education academic staff, ACT Government School teachers and school leaders, and other staff within the ACT Education Directorate
• Demonstrate alignment with broader Directorate programs and initiatives
• Maximise opportunities for external funding (e.g. Australian Research Council Linkage Grants)
• Include dissemination strategies that ensure impact across the whole system

Projects might:

• Range from school‐based action-research and pilot projects to large‐scale multi-school initiatives
• Be self-contained or part of a larger existing research program
• Be staged, with separate funding provided as the project grows from an initial pilot to a larger system wide initiative
• Build on existing partnerships between teachers and ������Ƶ academic staff
• Be led by teachers or school leaders, emerging from school and cluster-identified needs, potentially aligned with teachers’ formal study or emerging from the Teacher as Researcher program, supported through collaboration, mentorship and/or professional learning involving ������Ƶ academics
• Be led by ������Ƶ academics building on their prior research within identified priority themes, with teachers as partners and collaborators in the research.

Support from Executive Education Leader and Principals of all schools where initiatives will be implemented or data collection will be undertaken is essential. Approval should be given to each project-related demand on schools/systems including infrastructure, time and staff commitment.

Research themes and priority topics

Research proposals can be considered if they align with the broader themes within the .

Priority topics are regularly decided. The following priority themes and topics were agreed in 2024:

In addition to the priority areas above, applicants are encouraged to considered the .The framework has been designed to support the increased use of system- and school-level data and evidence to evaluate impact and identify areas of need for students, while also capturing more student, staff and community voice than ever before. A Student-Centred Evaluation Tool has been developed as part of the framework, and it is organised according to three dimensions (Leading, Learning and Wellbeing) across which schools need to demonstrate improvement.

The Affiliated School Program leadership aim to ensure that at least one project is funded for each priority topic. Proposals for research focussing on other topics within the major themes will also be eligible for funding but will require stronger arguments about their importance. All other things being equal a higher funding priority will be assigned for research aligned with the priority topics.

Application Process

Applications will follow a two-stage process comprising an Expression of Interest (EoI) and Full Application. Successful outcomes from the EoI process will be invited to submit a full application.

Eligibility

Project leaders must be either continuing or contract academic staff of ������Ƶ Faculty of Education or continuing or contract Education Directorate staff members. If the project leader is a contract rather than continuing staff member this should be factored into arguments about the long term impact and sustainability of the initiative.

Other team members may be continuing, contract or sessional ������Ƶ Faculty of Education academic or professional staff members, or continuing, contract or casual Education Directorate staff members.

Affiliated researchers from other ������Ƶ Faculties or other Universities may be named on the grant, but funds from the scheme cannot be expended within other Universities.

The project leader may not lead more than one active research grant at a time from the Affiliated Schools Research program. But the project leader can participate in other ������Ƶ Faculty of Education academic’s affiliated schools research project as a co-investigator while she/he holds one active research project as a leader.

At least one Affiliated School must be involved in the project. Non-affilate schools are able to participate but a minimum of one Affiliated School must be involved for applications to be considered for funding.

Funding

The ASRP aims to provide funding of $2 million over four years in Phase 2 (2024 to 2028) for collaborative research projects involving ������Ƶ Faculty of Education researchers and Affiliated Schools (AS) teachers and school leaders to meet Education Directorate needs aligned to the Future of Education Strategy. There are three categories of projects for which funding can be requested:

• Small projects: pilot or seed funded projects, or single school action-research projects, undertaken in under 18 months, for which funding up to $50,000 can be requested
• Medium projects: projects which involve a major school-wide initiative at a single school or initiatives across a number of schools, undertaken in under 24 months, for which funding up to $150,000 can be requested
• Large projects:  projects or programs with system wide impact, normally which build on an earlier Small or Medium project or a large body of prior research, undertaken in under 3 years, for which funding up to $300,000 can be requested

For more detailed guidelines about the project proposal, click here.