Following the open call to the membership, and a shortlisting and interview stage BERA is pleased to congratulate Oliver Hooper, Lizzie Rushton, and Andrew J. Davies on becoming Membership Chair, Scotland representative, and Wales representative respectively. All three individuals have held a variety of roles throughout BERA and bring extensive governance and research experience to the roles.

Oliver is a longstanding member of BERA’s Membership Committee, a former member of BERA Council, and a past convenor of the ECR Network. Gerry Czerniawski will continue as Membership Chair for a period of handover during 2027. Oli is keen to use BERA’s established reputation and believes the strong membership community provides a strong foundation to continue growing as a vibrant, inclusive and influential learned society.

Lizzie is Deputy Chair of the Scottish Council of Deans of Education and founding co-convenor of one of BERA’s special interest groups, Education for Environmental Sustainability, as well as an integral member of the BERA Blog editorial team. Lizzie is keen to ensure that the key opportunities and challenges which enable and constrain educational research in Scotland are understood and valued.

Andrew is a current member of BERA Council and sits on BERA’s publications committee. As a fluent Welsh-speaker who has worked at three universities within Wales, Andrew will bring a breadth and depth of perspective about Wales, its education system, and its educational research landscape to this role.

Thank you to all those who applied and congratulations to the successful applicants, we look forward to working them in their new roles. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all members who volunteer for BERA in any capacity.

BERA Advisory Council

As part of the changes to BERA’s governance structure, we are creating the BERA advisory council to expand member voice and allow for wider discussions about the discipline to help shape the strategic direction of BERA without the legal and governance requirements of trusteeship. More about these changes can be found here.

Following the earlier process, two candidates have been invited to join the advisory council, Mabel Encinas and Rachel Shanks.

Mabel has previously been a SIG convenor, sat on the membership committee. Her current term as BERA trustee ends at the end of 2026.

Rachel has served as a member of the Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) executive, and a wealth of experience working across three of the four nations of the UK.

We welcome both members to the inaugural advisory council.

The inaugural advisory council will be in place from 2027 and will comprise of the ten BERA trustees and a board of ten additional BERA members. Some of these places will be held by those currently serving on Council but finishing their term as trustees at the end of 2026. We are therefore recruiting four positions to the BERA advisory council. 

We are seeking applications from the membership to join the BERA advisory council to fill the remaining four vacancies, bringing the total cohort to twenty, you can apply here.