Summary - September 2026 Learning Session: Reimagining an Education R&D Ecosystem

Hosted by

Please join us for our next learning session on September 10^th from 3 pm – 4pm EDT (12pm – 1pm PDT)

During this session, Caitlin Farrell, director of the Center for Reimaging Education Research (CRER) and research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, and Rumeli Banik, principal officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts, will introduce the Moveable Feast. Supported by the Spencer Foundation, this initiative brings people together to collectively reimagine the infrastructure connecting research, development, policy, practice, and communities across the U.S. education field.

The Moveable Feast is a distributed, field-wide series of conversations hosted within existing networks, associations, and community spaces. Like a meal shared across neighbors’ homes, each participating group contributes its distinctive experiences and expertise while ideas travel across conversations. Insights from the series will ultimately be synthesized into shared design principles, practical possibilities, and directions for building an education R&D ecosystem that is more relevant, connected, and responsive to the goals of students, families, and communities.

Together, we will explore:
· What would it take to build an education R&D ecosystem that better serves students, families, and communities?
· Whose knowledge, perspectives, and expertise need to shape that ecosystem?
· How might research, development, policy, practice, and communities work differently together?

The session will begin with an orientation to the Moveable Feast and its goals. Participants will then experience its interactive routine. Beginning with shared aspirations for students, families, and communities, they will consider what different actors – including researchers, practitioners, intermediaries, funders, policymakers, and developers – would need to know and do, and how their roles might need to shift, to advance those goals. Participants will also identify the broader changes needed to support these new ways of working.

Although the Moveable Feast focuses on the U.S. education R&D ecosystem, this international, cross-sector learning community is especially well positioned to contribute perspectives from other evidence and R&D ecosystems. Participants will also “pull back the curtain” on the routine itself, offering feedback and considering how it might be adapted for their own sectors and contexts.

Questions to consider in advance
· Grounding: Think of a time when different groups worked well together toward a shared goal for students, families, or communities by understanding a problem and developing, testing, or implementing a solution or strategy. What made it work?
· Roles and learning: What would different groups need to do—and learn to do—differently to organize their R&D work around shared goals for students, families, and communities?
· System shifts: What would need to change in the broader R&D system to support these new ways of working and keep shared goals for students, families, and communities at the center?

These monthly learning sessions bring together researchers, practitioners, policy experts, intermediaries, funders, and others working to connect evidence, policy, and practice in more effective ways. The learning sessions seek to strengthen connections within this wide-ranging community by sharing practices and resources and discussing common challenges and needs.