Rooted in our dedication to promote children’s learning and development, we have consistently worked to enrich the learning experiences of Swiss children, teachers, and educational institutions. Through collaborative partnerships and initiatives, such as the Ready! Campaign, which brought together stakeholders from various sectors to champion a comprehensive early childhood policy, we have actively played a catalytic role in shaping the landscape of education in Switzerland.

Our commitment to this work deepens as we move forward in the digital age under the banner of Strategy 2030 with a strong focus on bridging the gap between evidence, policy, and practice, the foundation has established three interconnected partnerships to maximize the opportunities presented by the digitalization of education. These partnerships encompass a dedicated research consortium for digital education, an initiative spearheaded by proEdu that supports innovative digital education approaches at the school level, and a collaborative venture with staatslabor, a government innovation lab.

Additionally, we continue to prioritize fostering excellence in Swiss research institutions. We have joined forces with EPFL and ETH Zurich, Switzerland’s premier federal institutes of technology, to introduce a pioneering joint doctoral program in the learning sciences. This initiative marks a significant stride in advancing education and science in Switzerland, embodying our commitment to drive innovation through collaboration.

Beyond Switzerland, we actively promote the integration of evidence into teaching and learning practices, as well as EdTech products. This is achieved through collaborations with investors and global funders, including the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. We ensure that the knowledge gained from our global initiatives enhances our work and partnerships in Switzerland, where relevant.

As we maintain our decade-long engagement in our home country under Strategy 2030, we look forward to continuing to play a catalytic role in ensuring that Swiss children are given the education and learning opportunities they need to thrive.

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Variability is a common factor during childhood. Children’s abilities may vary within a classroom, within a social group or in different parts of a country or different regions of the world. Yet education systems are not designed to address children’s variable states, often offering inflexible instruction that does not fit the needs of most children at a given time. In addition, research usually focuses on group averages, short snapshots of time, and only one environment. There is also a lack of scientific evidence on the interplay between the different types of variability. We need this evidence to increase our understanding on why certain learning solutions might work for some individuals but not for others, or whether variability itself is different across groups or contexts.

LEVANTE aims to understand the nature of developmental variability. It will create a legal, ethical, and technical framework so that participating research teams can collect data from children ages 2-12 on a shared set of measurements. This data will be stored in a repository designed for open sharing and re-use, creating a unique resource for the study of variation in human development.

One key outcome of LEVANTE will be the creation of a uniquely large, well-curated, high value dataset to be used by researchers for years to come, with the main focus on learning variability. The LEVANTE Data Archive will not only facilitate the development of the science of learning variability, but help constitute the backbone of a larger multidisciplinary, multisectoral research community on learning variability working toward improving children’s learning and development globally.

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The Jacobs Foundation has launched a new research consortium that will focus on digital learning environments and cross-curricular competencies in Swiss primary schools. The ongoing transformation of educational systems, accelerated by the pandemic, has generated new opportunities for learning innovations that are supported by technology. Titled DEEP (Digital Education for Equity in Primary schools), the consortium aims to investigate ways to maximize the positive effects of the digital transformation on primary-school aged learners while accounting for potential risks.

The core outcomes of the consortium are to: 

• Produce rigorous evidence to address key evidence gaps evident in national research agendas and inform national education plans.
• Present rigorous evidence accessibly by synthesizing existing high-quality research relevant to national education needs and curating high-quality resources from global reviews.
• Promote evidence adoption and implementation in policy and school practice with a focus on children’s learning outcomes by supporting practitioners and policymakers to better understand evidence and promote its use in the design and evaluation of education practices.
• Integrate evidence in basic and continuous teacher training at teaching training universities. In Switzerland, these universities represent the most direct pathway to scalable impact at both the classroom and individual child levels.

The consortium has been designed as a partnership between seven institutions that reflect the institutional, geographical, political, and methodological diversity of Switzerland. The coordination office of the consortium will be led in tandem by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich (PHZH).

The research agenda of the consortium will be aligned with the Foundation’s focus on learning variability. It will also be determined in consultation with key stakeholders from across the education system, including local authorities, teachers, and school heads. Relevant governance and mechanisms will be set up to ensure participation of policy and practice throughout the design and execution of the research. Research activities are currently scheduled to start in January 2024. 

DEEP is one component of the Foundation’s programmatic work in Switzerland and serves as the EdLab mechanism in the country. EdLabs are evidence-driven partnerships that join education authorities, domestic research institutions, and practice-oriented professional bodies to promote evidence-based change in policy and practice. They aim to improve learning outcomes for all children by 1) producing and synthesizing rigorous evidence, 2) sharing evidence in a way that’s relevant and accessible, and 3) supporting evidence adoption and implementation in policy and school practice.

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The School Action Learning Exchange (SALEX) is a learning community of organizations that support schools, school leaders, and teachers by aggregating and sharing knowledge, building capacity, and implementing promising practices in schools. Its diverse set of founding members, who work across six continents, include national NGOs, multilateral institutions, and organizations supporting teacher and school leader capacity, among others.

SALEX members undertake a variety of collaborative activities to facilitate the generation and uptake of evidence, both within the community and for the broader education ecosystem.

SALEX Learning Agenda

Through a consultative design process with assistance from network facilitator Results for Development (R4D), SALEX members defined an initial learning agenda focusing on four topics:

• Building evidence and data into school and policy decisions:  Despite significant and rigorous evidence of promising practices and effective approaches in global education, this evidence is often not shared or integrated into school and policy-level decisions.
• Elevating and connecting teacher and school leader voices: Teachers and school leaders are at the heart of school-level change but they lack platforms to speak to each other and have their voices heard meaningfully in education policy.
• Integrating foundational skills and wellbeing, including alleviating setbacks from COVID-19: Teachers and schools should not only support learners’ fundamental skill building, but also help them flourish emotionally and socially.
• Testing and scaling teacher and school-driven innovations: Individual teachers and schools are developing unique approaches to address the challenges they face, but more could be done to better understand which innovations should be adapted and adopted across a wider range of schools and contexts.

Knowledge and research

SALEX members generate and aggregate knowledge on these topics through a range of different mechanisms, including topic-specific challenge groups. These challenge groups exchange resources, experiences and lessons learned, generate new knowledge and global public goods, and amplify existing learning.

The Catalytic Funding mechanism is intended to support applied, collaborative research among two or more SALEX members, aligned to one or SALEX’s focus themes in the learning agenda. Catalytic Funding awards not only support learning in the contexts in which research is taking place, but also among the broader global education community. As a result, each winning consortium will develop a global public good which can be used by others to support schools or school leaders. In May 2023, the foundation selected the first four catalytic funding projects. 

Founding SALEX members

Council of International Schools

Educapaz

Education International

Fundacion Luker (Luker Foundation)

Global School Leaders (GSL)

Global Schools Forum

HundrEd

International Baccalaureate

Instituto Gesto

Kizazi

Lewa Digital Literacy Initiative

NetEdu

PAL Network

Research Schools International

Schools2030

TaRL Africa

Teach for All

UNICEF Data Must Speak

Youth Impact

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Our approach focuses on bridging the gap between evidence, policy, and practice, fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders within Switzerland’s decentralized education system. The approach consists of three interconnected partnerships: a research consortium, a forum for sharing school best practices, and an initiative involving education authorities. 

• Research Consortium: Digital Education for Equity in Primary schools (DEEP) is a research consortium focused on digital education in primary schools. It involves seven diverse Swiss research institutions, jointly coordinated by EPFL and PHZH. DEEP generates fresh evidence on digital learning and translates it into actionable policies and practices aligned with the foundation’s focus on learning variability.
• Innovation at the school level: We support proEdu, an association formed by the Swiss Teachers Association and the Swiss School Principals Association, to encourage schools to experiment with innovative digital education approaches, fostering evidence-based practices to inspire further research and drive policy change.
• Collaboration with staatslabor: We partner with staatslabor, a Swiss government innovation lab, to empower education policy bodies and school authorities in leveraging digital technologies while ensuring educational equity.

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The Ideenbüro is the contact point in a school for problems of all kinds, from bullying and vandalism to strained relations between teachers and pupils. It is the children of Ideenbüro who themselves take on the responsibility of solving conflict independently and to engage in the social community. Every problem is dealt with in a structured problem-solving process and results in concrete suggestions for solutions. Subsequent to the consultation, particular attention is paid to ensuring that the ideas for solutions lead to sustainable success.

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Switzerland soon followed, where the a:primo association adjusted the Opstapje program and developed it further in line with local conditions, now naming it “schritt:weise” (“step-wise”).

Today, this support program is active in 85 locations in Germany and in a dozen in Switzerland. And it is still growing. Both organizations offer impressive proof that their programs enable families to see themselves as helpers and supporters in the process of child development. And these programs empower them in it. The Klaus J. Jacobs Best Practice Prize 2010 is given jointly to the two organizations Opstapje e.V. in Germany and a:primo in Switzerland.

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Basic reading, writing, and math competencies are essential to be able to participate in  modern societies. Aptitude is even more important in higher education settings and higher-paying jobs. Yet up to 15% of the population have problems learning to read, write, and spell,  and 5% have trouble developing maths concepts, despite having average or above-average  intelligence. These learning disabilities impact an individual’s general academic progress  which can lead to lifelong disadvantages and social-economic consequences. 

Dybuster, a Swiss-based EdTech provider, offers online learning solutions that target a  range of different learning disabilities. For example, children with dyslexia have trouble with  reading and spelling, and children with dyscalculia find forming mathematical concepts  difficult. Dybuster supports these children and their educators with individually adapted  learning that automatically adjusts to the strengths and weaknesses of each student.  Students can practice in or out of school, and teachers can monitor their progress in detail to  make more effective and less time-consuming interventions.

In a COVID-19 world, Dybuster supports consistent, high-quality, and individually targeted learning in mobile, isolated, and socially-distanced classroom environments. Children can use Dybuster independently, meaning they do not need to rely on a teacher being present at all times to make progress.

Dybuster started in 2006 in Zurich. Today, thousands of children around the world improve their spelling and math, including children with learning difficulties, with Dybuster tools. Studies confirm children show quantifiable improvement using Dybuster’s Orthograph for reading and writing, and Calcularis for math.

The Jacobs Foundation Board of Trustees recognizes Dybuster’s exceptional efforts to promote learning abilities of dyslexic and dyscalculic children by providing software solutions based on artificial intelligence and neuro-science, and especially considered Dybuster’s response to COVID-19 related challenges.

Interview with Christian Vögeli, CEO Dybuster

10 Questions with Christian Vögeli

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As we settle in the 21^st century expectations are shifting as to what is expected of the way we educate children. Preparing for a hyperconnected world and the demands of an ever-shifting job market requires the ability to learn new skills on the go rather than using the same expertise throughout the life span. New technologies are often decried these days, but could they be leveraged as learning tools of the 21^st century?

With the prize money Bavelier will leverage her research on action video games and brain plasticity to help consolidate a still fragmented field around the science of play. Play has been recognized as a critical behavior of central importance for child development.

My drive is to reveal the neural mechanisms by which one can unlock greater brain plasticity, and thus learning.

Prof. Daphne Bavelier

Prof. Daphne Bavelier

Meet Daphne

Photo Gallery

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