On November 27, team members from the Growth Fund project Ontwikkelkracht visited NOLAI. Both projects are committed to evidence-informed educational innovation and share the ambition to make education future-proof.
Ontwikkelkracht X NOLAI: Together for Evidence-Informed Educational Innovation
Ontwikkelkracht and NOLAI are both working on innovative, evidence-informed solutions for education, but from different perspectives. How and where can these strengths be combined for the benefit of education?
Ontwikkelkracht: Interaction Between Educational Practice and Research
Ontwikkelkracht is a program aimed at sustainably improving the quality of education in the Netherlands. Central to this is the interaction between educational practice and research: the program seeks to create a movement in which schools continuously improve their teaching based on knowledge from education and practice. Like NOLAI, Ontwikkelkracht is funded by the National Growth Fund: in 2022, €332 million was allocated for a 10-year period. The program office is housed at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW).
Many Common Ground
The meeting was organized by Annelies Wiggers, Co-Creation Manager at NOLAI, and Jeanne van Loon, Program Manager at Ontwikkelkracht. Annelies opened with a warm welcome and a playful remark: “Ontwikkelkracht and NOLAI have been flirting for a long time, and now we finally have our first date!” After a brief round of introductions, presentations on the two Growth Fund projects followed, immediately highlighting several areas of overlap. For example, Ontwikkelkracht, like NOLAI, brings research and educational practice together. Ontwikkelkracht also focuses on strengthening teachers’ professional autonomy and promoting evidence-informed practices in schools. This aligns well with NOLAI’s scientific approach within the hexagon and, of course, with the focus area ‘Training and Professionalization’.
Four Discussion Tables
After the plenary session, participants were divided among four discussion tables, each with a different theme:
- Training & Professionalization
- Pedagogical-Didactic
- How Do You Work in Co-Creation?
- Scaling and Implementation (How Do You Create Impact?)
At each table, several NOLAI colleagues and Ontwikkelkracht team members joined, each bringing their own expertise. To spark and guide the conversation, a list of thought-provoking questions was placed on each table. This turned out to be hardly necessary, as participants immediately began exchanging substantive questions, making comparisons, finding parallels, and suggesting opportunities for collaboration. There was particular interest in the working methods and best practices of the respective projects.
Discussing Common Themes
Topics that came up at the different tables included: What is the difference between NOLAI’s co-creation projects and Ontwikkelkracht’s co-creation labs? How do you reach as many schools as possible, recruit them for co-creation, and keep them engaged? There was a lot of common ground and recognition. We want to entice schools, school leaders, and teachers to participate—and they often feel the need—but they lack time. How can we persuade them to join anyway? How do we ensure schools become aware of AI applications? Another theme was implementation and how challenging it is to make an impact at scale, across many classrooms. How do you get into the classroom, how do you take that step?
Outcome and Conclusion: A Successful First Date
A final, central round of feedback from the discussion tables made it clear that this first meeting between Ontwikkelkracht and NOLAI was successful and will certainly have a follow-up. Annelies and Jeanne thanked all colleagues for their presence and contributions. There was great willingness and enthusiasm to further explore collaboration between the two projects. Annelies called it a promising first exploration. Jeanne concluded that several areas were identified where we can learn from each other: “NOLAI and Ontwikkelkracht turn out to be complementary in many ways. We see plenty of opportunities for collaboration. Who knows where this might lead in the future.”
Contact information
- Organizational unit
- National Education Lab AI (NOLAI)
- Theme
- Artificial intelligence (AI)