New Project TRANSFER Aims to Bridge Gaps between Research, Policy and Practice for More Inclusive Education     

The new Horizon Europe project TRANSFER sets out to address these challenges by strengthening policy evaluation and knowledge exchange between research, policy and practice through an integrated approach, while placing equity and inclusion at the centre of its work. Coordinated by the University of Fribourg, TRANSFER brings together a multidisciplinary consortium of 13 partners from eight European countries and has received approximately €3.5 million in funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme for the next three years. The Hungarian partnership comprises the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, ELTE, the RCISD, and Corvinus University of Budapest as an associated partner.

Evaluating the Impact of Education Policies

TRANSFER will develop and test a participatory, mixed-method framework with evaluation throughout the policy cycle at its centre. Rather than focusing primarily on outcomes after implementation, researchers will examine how education policies are developed, put into practice and experienced, as well as their intended and unintended effects.

Bringing Research Closer to Everyday Educational Practice

Alongside policy evaluation, TRANSFER will investigate how evidence translates across research, policy and practice and identify the factors that help or hinder its uptake in decision-making and educational practice. The insights and perspectives gathered through this process will help shape practical approaches and resources, including methodological guidelines, policy briefs and recommendations, an interactive evidence platform and an AI-supported foresight simulator. Developed with their intended users, these resources are designed to respond to real needs and remain useful beyond the project.

Together, these efforts aim to establish more lasting ways of evaluating education policies, sharing evidence and learning across research, policy and practice. By strengthening evaluation cultures and the systematic use of evidence from the Social Sciences and Humanities, TRANSFER ultimately seeks to support more equitable and inclusive education systems across Europe.