Research-led excellence: AIEOU 2026 Shared Research Agenda

At AI in Education, the mission has always been to ensure that AI integration in schools is led by educators, not just technology. The AI in Education at the University of Oxford (AIEOU) community shares this approach, recognising “that AI in education is not simply a technical challenge. It is a social, ethical, pedagogical, and governance challenge that unfolds differently across contexts, cultures, and educational traditions.” This week, they published the AIEOU 2026 Shared Research Agenda (Ratner et al., 2026)

We are delighted that our own Programme Director, Sarah Alcock, played a part in this global collaboration. Contributing as a participant, Sarah focused on AI implementation in schools and colleges, ensuring that the voice of leaders and practitioners is heard at the highest levels of academic inquiry.

The AIEOU Shared Research Agenda represents a global effort to identify the most critical questions facing education in the age of AI. We are pleased to see how closely their findings align with the core pillars of our own AiEd Certified Framework, particularly the three highest density research questions identified (page 14):

• Human-centred education and human flourishing - this is central to the whole framework which focuses on school / college leaders, teaching staff and students

• Cognition, metacognition and learning sciences - Digital Pedagogy and critical thinking are pervasive across the framework

• Governance, policy and systems design - also thoroughly embedded in the framework through the Leadership group, as well as the Policies & Ethics and Tools & Systems elements

We look forward to continuing our support for this essential research and bringing insights directly to the classrooms.

Reference: Ratner, S., Nie, D., Williams, R., Wonnacott, E., & Trefethen, A. (2026). AIEOU shared research agenda 2026. Department of Education, University of Oxford. https://doi.org/10.5287/ora-nogo0ra4e

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