About Us
NORRAG IN BRIEF
NORRAG is the Global Education Centre of the Geneva Graduate Institute and a global network of more than 5,800 members for international policies and cooperation in education and training. NORRAG is an offshoot of the Research, Review, and Advisory Group (RRAG) established in 1977 and at the time funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Swedish International Development Authority (Sida). It was charged with critically reviewing and disseminating education research related to the Global South. Since our move to Switzerland in 1992, NORRAG has been significantly supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and, for a period, the Open Societies Foundation (OSF).
NORRAG’s strength lies in addressing under-researched questions of quality and equity in key issues in education and development and in amplifying under-represented expertise, particularly from the South. NORRAG’s core mandate is to co-produce, disseminate and broker critical knowledge and to strengthen capacity for and with the wide range of stakeholders who constitute our network. Our stakeholders from academia, governments, NGOs, international organisations, foundations and the private sector inform and shape education policies and practice at regional, national and international levels. Through our work, NORRAG contributes to creating the conditions for more participatory, evidence-informed decisions that improve equal access to and quality of education and training.
NORRAG seeks to actively participate in the creation of the conditions for more participatory, evidence-informed policy decisions that improve equal access to quality education. NORRAG supports public, private and voluntary sectors and academia worldwide in our common goal to improve equitable and quality education and learning outcomes for the learners and societies that are at the centre of all education policy and practice.
NORRAG undertakes projects in four thematic priority areas which need more and better contextualised research and knowledge, policy dialogue and capacity building. A fifth set of transversal activities relates to ensuring NORRAG’s institutional sustainability.
- How can data and evidence support the inclusion of marginalized groups?
- How can quality, equitable education overlay and intersect with other SDGs?
- How can innovations and disruptions improve access, equity and quality in education?
- How can private sector approaches improve equitable access to quality education?
NORRAG co-produces, mobilises and disseminates quality research and evidence on education and development in order to help reduce uncertainty for policy makers, planners, practitioners and researchers. Surfacing and amplifying under-represented expertise, particularly from the South, helps to generate relevant and contextualised global, regional and national public goods and policy debate. Recognising that evidence use is essentially a relational process underpins our facilitation of policy dialogue in Geneva and worldwide. Building capacity to collect, interpret and use data and evidence helps to improve educational planning, policymaking and practice (see How we work).
Together these ways of working activate positive feedback loops that enable a more favourable environment for evidence-informed policy, planning and practice for equitable, quality education. NORRAG’s distinctive approach to advancing equitable, quality, accessible lifelong education enables our stakeholders to:
- KNOW what robust evidence exists
- AMPLIFY knowledge that is context-relevant
- ACCESS under-represented knowledge relevant to their work
- ACT: work with context-relevant knowledge and expertise to formulate priorities and solutions.
NORRAG is an associated programme of the Geneva Graduate Institute. Read our Strategy 2021-2025 here