Sustaining Innovation
This Researchers Without Borders project grows out of a National Science Foundation funded project called, "Accumulating Knowledge on Scaling and Sustaining Reform: A Foundation for Future Research." The goals of that project that are shared with this RWB Sustaining Innovation Project include: 1) To provide a foundation for accumulating knowledge about diffusion and sustainability of reform in STEM education and education in general, and in other fields; 2) To identify ways that knowledge about diffusion and sustainability of reform in other disciplines and sectors can inform improvement efforts in education and STEM education in particular; and 3) To establish a forum for cross-discipline collaboration and sharing and growth of knowledge on diffusion and sustainability of reform.
The RWB Sustaining Innovation Project houses the ongoing development and analysis of findings from the NSF project. Those findings include identification and definition of factors that contribute to and inhibit sustainability of reform, clarification and definition of concepts (e.g. sustainability), and identification and definition of the processes and mechanisms that are part of the change process. The work of this project also includes the development of a conceptual framework that organizes the findings.
It is the hope of this project that as we innovate in education, the findings of this work will inform the steps we take so that our investments are well made and provide returns in the long term. It is our expectation that the conceptual framework and shared language developed through the process of this RWB project will provide tools we need to accumulate knowledge across efforts so that we can collectively learn and inform future work.