Co-creating Our Futures Together: Shaping Networked Ecosystem of Research-Practice Partnerships

This proposed longitudinal, international, and multi-case exploratory study will aim to understand the process in which schools and research partners co-create learning ecosystems together to achieve desired outcomes, as well as the ways in which networked systems approach to leadership and organizational change supports or constrains the partnerships’ work toward better outcomes. Drawing from major conceptual areas of systems thinking in school leadership, organizational change, as well as research–practice partnership (RPP), we will investigate: (a) the process in which practitioners and researchers co-construct organizational goals and desired outcomes, (b) the development of measurement for organizational change toward the set outcomes, (c) the role of network intervention in facilitating change, and (d) the capacity of evidence-intensive self-evolving ecosystem of learning within different educational systems. By examining what works and what does not in terms of research––practice partnership and network intervention, the study attempts to not only address calls for equitable RPP and socio-relational aspect of reform, but also develop theory in action that works across multiple educational contexts to ultimately achieve equitable and self-evolving learning ecosystems for all.