The Learner Research Network

Learning across contexts—early childhood, schools, universities, workplaces, and communities.

The Learner Research Network brings together researchers, educators, curriculum leaders, and policy makers to explore how people learn and how learning environments can be designed for equity, inclusion, and transformation. Member-based and scholar-led, the Network examines learning as both a human capacity and a social practice—spanning pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, and education systems.

Founded in 1989, the Learner Research Network began its life in Sydney, Australia, with the first International Conference on Learning focusing on genre approaches to literacy and auspiced by the Literacy and Education Research Network. Over time, the focus of the conference broadened to include “multiliteracies”—a wider range of communication modes than conventional print literacy—and then learning more generally, with particular attention to “new learning”: the transformations underway in teaching and learning in changing social, cultural, and technological conditions.

Across three decades, the International Conference on Learning has convened with universities and cultural institutions worldwide, including the University of Barcelona (2009), The Hong Kong Institute of Education (2010), University of Mauritius (2011), Institute of Education, University of London (2012), University of the Aegean, Rhodes (2013), Touro College, New York City (2014), Universidad San Pablo CEU, Madrid (2015), University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2016), University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (2017), University of Athens (2018), Queen’s University Belfast (2019), University of Valencia (2022), Jagiellonian University (2021), University of São Paulo (2023), Utrecht University (2024), and University of Granada (2025). These partnerships anchor the Network’s geographic reach and multilingual exchange across Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Asia–Pacific.

The Network has welcomed many of the field’s most influential voices, including Courtney Cazden (Harvard University), Peter McLaren (Chapman University), Fazal Rizvi (University of Illinois), Jim Cummins (OISE/University of Toronto), Martin Nakata (James Cook University), Sarah Michaels (Clark University), Bill Cope (University of Illinois), Denise Newfield (University of the Witwatersrand), James Paul Gee (Arizona State University), Michael Apple (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Pippa Stein (University of the Witwatersrand), Brian Street (King’s College London), Carey Jewitt (UCL Knowledge Lab), Gunther Kress (University of London), Kris Gutiérrez (University of California, Berkeley), Mary Kalantzis (University of Illinois), Colin Lankshear (Mount Saint Vincent University), Michele Knobel (Montclair State University), Crain Soudien (HSRC, South Africa), and Graça Machel. Together, these speakers have shaped debates on literacy, equity, multimodality, teacher education, and the social futures of learning.

The Network’s publishing ecosystem is anchored by The Learner Journal Collection, launched in 1995 and expanded into a family of journals in 2013. The collection includes titles such as Adult, Community, and Professional Learning; Assessment and Evaluation; Early Childhood Learning; Educational Organization and Leadership; Learning in Higher Education; Learner Diversity and Identities; Literacies; Pedagogy and Curriculum; Science, Mathematics, and Technology Learning; and Technologies in Learning. Together, they examine learning across age ranges and settings, linking classroom practice with broader questions of policy, leadership, equity, and digital transformation.

Each year, the Learner International Award for Excellence recognizes work from across this journal collection. The award is selected from the ten highest-ranked peer-reviewed articles and granted Open Access status; recipients are invited to speak at the following year’s conference. Award-winning research has addressed multimodal literacy, translanguaging, inclusive pedagogy, digital learning environments, teacher professional development, and assessment reform, reflecting the Network’s blend of theory, empirical work, and classroom-based innovation.

Long-form projects are supported by The Learner Book Imprint, which publishes monographs and edited volumes on curriculum and pedagogy, assessment and leadership, literacy and language, educational technology, and institutional change. The imprint is intentionally inclusive, welcoming authors from many national and disciplinary backgrounds and offering Open Access options to extend the reach of educational research to practitioners and policymakers.

Guided by its founding chairs, Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, and joined by regional leaders such as José Luis Ortega Martín (Spanish-language Chair), the Learner Research Network continues to expand thematically and geographically. Through its conference, journals, book imprint, and CGScholar community, it sustains an inclusive, evidence-driven conversation that links research to practice across learning communities worldwide.

• 1989 - Literacy and Learning, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
• 1991 - Foundations of Learning, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
• 1993 - Learning in Changing Contexts, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
• 1995 - Learning: The Cultures of Learning; The Languages of Learning; The Business of Learning, Townsville, Australia
• 1997 - Literacy Teaching for the Future, Araluen Arts Centre Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia
• 1999 - Languages of Learning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
• 2000 - Learning on a Human Scale, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
• 2001 - Learning for the Future, University of Athens in Spetses, Greece
• 2002 - Navigating Cultures, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
• 2003 - What Learning Means, Institute of Education, London University, London, UK
• 2004 - Learning Today: Communication, Technology, Environment, Society, Institute of Pedagogical Sciences, Havana, Cuba
• 2005 - Designs for Learning, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
• 2006 - Living Issues in Education, Sam Sharpe Teachers College, Montego Bay, Jamaica
• 2007 - Education and Culture, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
• 2008 - Educational Values and Values in Education, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA
• 2009 - Learning Across Cultures, Media, and Modes, University of Barcelona, Spain
• 2010 - Creative and Imaginative Futures for Schooling, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
• 2011 - Sustainable Education and Innovative Learning, University of Mauritius, Mauritius
• 2012 - Multimodality, Literacy, and Learning, The Institute of Education, University of London, UK
• 2013 - Two Decades Exploring Innovation in Education, The University of the Aegean in Rhodes, Greece
• 2014 - New Directions in Pedagogy, Lander College at Touro College, New York City, USA
• 2015 - What Counts as Learning? Big Data, Little Data, Evidence and Assessment, Universidad San Pablo CEU, Madrid, Spain
• 2016 - Education in the Age of the Anthropocene, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
• 2017 - New Media for New Learning, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA
• 2018 - Education in a Time of Austerity and Social Turbulence, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
• 2019 - Learning to Make a Social Difference, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK
• 2020 - Intercultural Learning in Plurilingual Contexts, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain (Virtual)
• 2021 - Universalism or Particularism: Knowledge and Power in the Process of Decolonization Revisited, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland (Virtual)
  
• 2022 - Intercultural Learning in Plurilingual Contexts, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
  
• 2023 - Literacies and Educational Changes: Rediscussing Digital Learning, Neoliberalism and Post-Pandemic Policies, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
  
• 2024 - The Converging Challenges for Inclusive Education: Intercultural Competences and Digital Literacies in Global Contexts, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
  
• 2025 - Human Learning and Machine Learning—Challenges and Opportunities for Artificial Intelligence in Education, University of Granada, Granada, Spain