Nominations for the 2019 BERA Council Elections are now open. We are looking to fill 2 ordinary member vacancies on our Council.

In recent years BERA has gone from strength to strength with record membership, a wide array of events, a successful annual conference and our four Journals as well as Research Intelligence and the Blog. BERA Council has significantly contributed to this; setting strategic priorities, providing academic leadership and helping our engagement within and beyond the academy. BERA’s core aims are to: advance research quality, build research capacity and foster research engagement in the education field. These aims are intended to secure the health of the discipline of education going forward and strengthen the contribution educational research can make in the public domain.

If you feel you have something to offer BERA, please do consider putting yourself forward for Council. BERA is particularly seeking representation from Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as practitioners. Nominations will be reviewed against the areas listed.

The trustee role description can be found here. Please read this carefully before deciding whether to apply.

The current council term is for four years. If successfully elected, your term will begin on 1st September 2019 and end in August 2023 – although if successfully elected, you will be invited to attend the Away Day in May 2019 to attend a compulsory Trustees’ training and induction session and attend a meeting of Council as an Observer. Council meets again in September 2019, and you will be able to participate with full voting rights at this meeting.

Council has updated our election process to ensure that key roles are filled by those with both the background and knowledge to be able to pay a full role in the governance of BERA and ensure that we meet our charitable obligations. As a result, the election process for roles such as this is a two-stage process whereby in the first instance we invite applicants to submit a nomination which will then be reviewed against the role description listed including, if appropriate, an interview with members of BERA’s General Purposes Committee. After that, suitable candidates will be able to be elected by the wider membership. If there is only one candidate but they are deemed suitable by the panel, then they are elected unopposed.

More details on the role of Council and its place in BERA’s governance can be found here.

To apply:

General Council Position

Please submit an expression of interest. Please demonstrate what skills and experience would make you suitable for a position on BERA Council and how you would fulfil the role described and contribute to the strategic direction of BERA (600 word max). Please send this to secretariat@bera.ac.uk by 15 Feb 2019.

To be eligible to stand, candidates must be fully paid up members of BERA at the time of the nomination process opening. Their proposers must also be fully paid up members of BERA at the time of the nomination process opening. No extensions are granted.

Candidates must not be ineligible to stand according to the rules set out by the Charity Commission or Companies House. If you want any further information or want to talk to us before standing, please contact Secretariat at secretariat@bera.ac.uk