EAPRIL seeks to bridge research, theory and practice. It aims at becoming a network for anyone who wishes to contribute to the development of education through practice-based and applied research: practitioner researchers, educational developers, professional and staff developers, educational technologists, instructional designers, educational policy makers, people involved in organisational change in educational institutions, teachers, trainers, academic researchers in the field of applied education, and so on.
Rapid technological changes, immigration, international competition in our societies are among the many developments influencing education. More and more, researchers, teachers and developers in education believe that new ways are needed to understand these developments. They believe that ‘traditional’ or ‘fundamental’ educational research may not address the complexity of these changes. Further, they feel that new venues are needed for practitioners and researchers to talk to each other. We need research-based practice as well as practice-based research, in other words, research that is relevant to practitioners.
EAPRIL is strongly connected to EARLI, the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, a network of about 2000 fundamental researchers in the field of learning and instruction. Members of the executive board of EARLI are represented in the organisational structure of EAPRIL, and EARLI has provided substantial backup to start up this new organisation. The involvement of EARLI strenghtens the link between theory and practice.