This opportunity is now closed.

The British Educational Research Journal (BERJ) was established in 1975 and is looking ahead to both its 50th anniversary in 2025, and that of its publisher, BERA, in 2024. While we are forward-looking and try to represent as fully as possible the current state of educational research and where it is heading, it is important that the field also retains and indeed develops a sense of its own history.

With this in mind the journal is making available five stipends of £1,000 to support the curation of five virtual special issues, each of which will contain a selection of papers published in one of the first five decades of the journal’s life, together with an introduction by the curator/guest editor(s) of each virtual special issue. These decades will be defined as follows:

• 1975–1984
• 1985–1994
• 1995–2004
• 2005–2014
• 2014–present

Our main ambition is to offer readers an overview of the scholarship that has been published by BERJ since its inception, spotting trends and developments, things that have emerged and things that may have disappeared or become less prominent in the field over time. We are not anticipating full-blown historical research projects – rather, an informed selection from and reflection about each of the first five decades of BERJ.

We invite proposals from educational researchers in the UK or elsewhere, at any stage of their career, including those who may have retired from the field but were active during one of the decades. Please submit a brief letter (around 1,000 words) in which you indicate your interest in curating one (or more) of these issues, what experience you will bring to this task, and any other information that may help the editors in making decisions about these awards. The editors will also involve members of the editorial board in the selection process.

Please submit your expression of interest by 5pm on Monday, 24 May 2021 to publications@bera.ac.uk.