Why are we doing this?

Technology in education has huge potential to benefit everyone: providing tools and resources that can support learners to succeed and teachers to become better at teaching.

The sector is huge, and growing: according to the Financial Times, schools in the UK spend £900 million on educational technology each year - with the sector predicted to grow from £45 billion to £129 billion by 2020.

Yet tech products don’t always meet the needs of teachers and learners. Edtech businesses and start-ups do not always have access to research and evaluation expertise to make sure that their product or service delivers excellent educational outcomes.

There is a clear need to enable more effective collaboration between innovators, academic researchers and educators - so that products are based on a strong research and evaluation base. This will enable innovations to solve key problems for educational institutions, teachers and learners.

What are we doing?

Nesta is supporting EDUCATE, a groundbreaking collaborative partnership that will bring together edtech start-ups, researchers and educators. Through expert training and support, edtech start-ups and SMEs will use research evidence to inform the development of their products, ensure their innovation delivers effectively for educators and generate sound evaluation trials that demonstrate impact.

Our ambition is better, evidence-informed edtech products, enabling better digitally enhanced education.

The partnership is led by University College London (UCL) in partnership with Nesta, F6S Consulting and the British Educational Suppliers’ Assocation, and match-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

EDUCATE will deliver a range of activities, including:

• A comprehensive and rigorous training programme, designed to help 250 innovators and businesses to evaluate and improve their products, and 100 teacher and researcher entrepreneurs to commercialise their work
• Supporting the generation of four additional EDUCATE centres at key locations across the UK
• Developing, promoting and managing an EDUCATed award for organisations who integrate sound evidence and research methods into their edtech products
• Providing a co-working space at UCL and carefully produced resources, information and events to make research evidence about what works in education technology accessible to a wide audience

Nesta will provide support in attracting and selecting innovative start-ups and SMEs to join the EDUCATE programme through our networks of accelerators, investors and start-ups.

We will also provide workshops and advice on how to pitch to impact investors and the practical considerations of testing edtech products in schools, as well as providing project management and leadership support.

The first cohorts have included participants that focus on a wide variety of educational technologies from physical education teaching in primary schools to a global social learning platform.

What’s next?

EDUCATE officially started on 1 January 2017, opening the doors of its physical and digital working spaces to the first London-based programme participants in June 2017. The programme will work with four cohorts of participants each year to the end of 2019, assisting 246 innovators during the lifetime of its current funding.

As part of our commitment to promoting the most effective digital learning technologies, Nesta will support EDUCATE to explore potential future funding models for sustaining the programme beyond 2019.

We will also continue to work to improve access to effective technology in other ways. This includes incubating Rocket Fund - a pilot platform to crowdfund technology products for teachers who want to test and experiment within the classroom. Nesta Impact Investments will continue to have a strong focus on edtech investments having previously supported a range of edtech pioneers, including Cogbooks, Third Space Learning and Arbor Education.