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The EDUCA Flagship gathered in Espoo

Approximately 150 EDUCA Flagship researchers in educational sciences, psychology, learning analytics, and economics, as well as representatives from our stakeholder groups, gathered in person once again at the Spring 2026 EDUCA Conference, this time on the Aalto University campus in Espoo. The intensive days featured interesting keynote speeches, research presentations, a panel discussion, and invited sessions – not to mention networking opportunities and shared leisure activities.

The conference actually already kicked off on Tuesday, May 19, with a meeting of the EDUCA Doctoral Education Pilot and it's work-life collaboration partners. During the afternoon, participants discussed what work-life collaboration might look like during doctoral education and what to expect after completing a PhD.

On the opening day of EDUCA Conference 2026 Professor Eric Taylor from the Harvard Graduate School of Education described in his keynote speech how individual teachers' performance has been evaluated in the U.S. and how this has affected the performance of the children they teach.

On the first day of the conference, also parallel sessions were held to discuss ongoing EDUCA research projects, and the flagship project’s findings to date were presented to fellow researchers from the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden. A workshop on career planning was also organized for doctoral researchers.

A pizza night and a pub quiz wrapped up the official program for the first day of the conference.

On the second day, there were invited sessions focusing on the advanced research methods and analyses using register data, followed by a keynote speech by Associate Professor Miriam Wüst of the University of Copenhagen on early interventions targeting children and families in Denmark.

The presentation of the KYTKE study drew a large crowd on Thursday and sparked discussion about the anti-racism workshops studied.

The EDUCA Conference concluded with a panel discussion in which Anita Lehikoinen, former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education and Culture; Mirja Tarnanen, professor at the University of Jyväskylä; and the keynote speakers discussed the importance of data infrastructure as a prerequisite for high-quality research. It was also pointed out that Finland’s education system is not centrally managed, which makes the development of schools and teaching challenging in the big picture.

A big thank you to the event organizers and, of course, to all participants! See you again in Turku this fall!