EdTech Strategy Lab - Empowering the Ecosystem Event Report

On December 3rd and 4th, the European EdTech Alliance convened over 130 EdTech leaders from 34 countries to contribute to a rich dialogue about the future of trust and evidence in EdTech as part of the EdTech Strategy Lab: Empowering the Ecosystem event held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. 

We are pleased now to share the report summarising the significant discussions, key themes, and insights that emerged throughout the day-long session. 

The report highlights a diversity of stakeholder perspectives, discussions, and insights that emerged during the engaging and impactful two days. It also serves not only as a summary of this knowledge exchange experience, but also as a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand the current dynamics of the evidence ecosystem for education and the needs and motivations of the various stakeholders within it.

As a whole, the event highlighted several critical insights into the challenges and opportunities in the EdTech space:

• Building trust and collaboration across a diverse set of stakeholders—educators, policymakers, researchers, tech developers, and learners—is essential for a sustainable and successful EdTech ecosystem.

• The digital transformation of education requires alignment among stakeholders to effectively bridge research, policy, and practice, ensuring evidence informs decision-making.

• The development and implementation of EdTech solutions needs to be an iterative, multi-stakeholder process.

• Bridging the gap between research and practice is vital, with foundational research establishing evidence for effective solutions and developmental research ensuring products align with business needs for scalability.

• Evaluating EdTech requires understanding the diverse needs and contexts of stakeholders and education systems, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all framework.

• Further collaboration that includes all kinds of stakeholders around the topics of trust and evidence in EdTech is necessary, especially with the goal to better understand key needs of stakeholders and how best to communicate with them.

In 2024, the EdTech Strategy Lab launched with a goal to empower the EdTech ecosystem, foster collaboration, and explore the evolving needs and requirements  of stakeholders around the topics of trust, evidence, and partnerships. This report allows us to look back at the past year of activity and research as well as understand what next steps for the future will look like.