DfE awards nearly £3 million contract for new education economics research centre
England’s Department for Education has awarded a contract worth almost £3 million to UCL Consultants Ltd to launch a new Economics of Education Research Centre.
The Department for Education in England has awarded a contract worth almost £3 million to UCL Consultants Ltd to launch a new Economics of Education Research Centre, bringing together UCL, the London School of Economics, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The new centre will develop evidence and tools to help policymakers assess the economic and social value of education and skills policies. Its work will cover areas including early years, special educational needs and disabilities, post-16 education, skills, and young people not in education, employment, or training.
The centre, known as the EERC, will initially run until March 2028. Its Executive Board will include Professor Lindsey Macmillan from the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, Professor Sandra McNally from the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE, and Christine Farquharson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
DfE turns to economics for education policy design
The EERC will work with the Department for Education to build a work program focused on how education and skills policies are valued, funded, and judged over time.
The centre will examine how education and skills affect earnings, productivity, social mobility, and public spending. It will also look at whether earlier investment in areas such as early years and SEND can reduce longer-term costs.
One focus will be young people not in education, employment, or training, known as NEET. UCL said the centre will work on evidence showing the drivers and consequences of young people becoming NEET, including potential links to benefits spending, mental health, and crime.
Professor Macmillan says: "We don’t currently have the evidence or tools to make a strong case for preventative action to stop young people from becoming NEET."
She adds: "The underlying costs and benefits of acting early, before they reach the labour market, are not well evidenced. Through this new centre, we can support the Department for Education to better understand the trade-offs of implementing preventative action – including estimating potential savings from benefits spending, wider costs in terms of mental health, and even lowering crime. The health space does this well, but there is more to be done to match this in the education space."
The centre will draw on major datasets including the Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset and Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data. It will also work directly with DfE analysts to strengthen use of the department’s own data resources in England.
Centre follows new educational neuroscience contract
The education economics contract follows a separate UCL-led award from the Department for Education in England to create a new educational neuroscience policy research centre.
That centre, also worth up to £3 million, will be led through UCL Consultants and will bring together expertise from nine universities, including UCL Institute of Education and the Birkbeck Centre for Educational Neuroscience.
The neuroscience centre will focus on how children and young people learn, with work covering early years through to higher education. It will also provide rapid-response evidence for emerging policy questions, including the impact of AI-enhanced technology in home and school learning environments.
Together, the two centres give DfE dedicated research capacity in two areas now sitting close to major policy decisions in England: how students learn, and how education investment is valued.
Early Education Minister Olivia Bailey says: "Decisions should of course be rooted in what the evidence tells us actually works for children and young people.
"These new centres will help us do exactly that – bringing together some of the best minds in the country to make sure our reforms on SEND, early years, and children’s mental health are built on solid foundations, and that we understand the long-term value of the choices we make."
Department for Education Chief Scientific Advisor Michael Thomas says: "To make the best decisions for children and young people, we need a clear understanding of how they learn, and rigorous evidence of what works.
"These centres will give us both – bringing together the best of neuroscience and economics across two focused centres to put a stronger evidence base at the heart of education policy."
Academics and DfE analysts will work together
The EERC has a capacity-building brief as well as a research brief.
The consortium will work with DfE analysts on data use and evidence methods. It will also develop education economists across the participating organizations, with Macmillan posting on LinkedIn that the centre has "a strong capability building element" and will help grow "the next generation of education economists both within government and in academia."
Macmillan says: "This new centre represents exactly what we should be doing as academics. We should be working directly with the people who are designing policies and making decisions, to help them navigate that process based on rigorous evidence. Being closely engaged with government and policymakers means the research we design and deliver is as impactful as possible."
UCL Consultants, a wholly owned subsidiary of UCL, was selected as preferred bidder after a competitive process. UCL said the process assessed criteria including research quality, links with experts across subject specialisms, and capacity-building among analysts, policymakers, and education economists.
The EERC will run until March 2028 in the first instance. Its early work will be shaped with DfE, with the centre expected to produce evidence and appraisal tools for education and skills policies at a time when government is working on SEND, early years, post-16 education, skills needs, and AI in learning.
