Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 214, 215-243 (2012)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2012-01693-0

Regular Article

The FuturICT education accelerator

¹ Faculty of Mathematics, Computing & Technology, The Open University, MK7 6AA, UK
² The Complex Systems Society, 218 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, 75010 Paris, France
³ Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, MK7 6AA, UK
⁴ Department of Mathematics, University College London, Gower Street, WC1 E6BT, UK
⁵ Faculty of Science, The Open University, MK7 6AA, UK
⁶ EPSRC Complex Systems Doctoral Training Centre, University of Warwick, CV4 7A, UK
⁷ Eötvös Loránd University, ELTE Egyetem tér 1-3. Budapest, 1053 Hungary
⁸ ASE Bucharest 6, Piata Romana, sector 1, 010374, Romania
⁹ CREA, École Polytechnique, Paris, France
¹⁰ Faculty of Informatics, Lisbon University Institute, Portugal
¹¹ Distance Education Centre, Riga Technical University, Azenes iela, Riga LV1048, Latvia
¹² Science + Technology in Learning, 54 Holywell Ave, Whitley Bay, NE26 3AD, UK
¹³ Centre for Systems Learning & Leadership, University of Bristol, BS8 1JA, UK
¹⁴ Incept Labs, Suite 505, 35 Lime Street, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
¹⁵ Département d’Informatique de l’Université de Strasbourg, France
¹⁶ Department of Physics, Politecnico Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, Torino, Italy
¹⁷ ETH Zürich, Clausiusstrasse 50, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland

^a e-mail: j.h.johnson@open.ac.uk

Received: 1 August 2012
Revised: 9 October 2012
Published online: 5 December 2012

Abstract

Education is a major force for economic and social wellbeing. Despite high aspirations, education at all levels can be expensive and ineffective. Three Grand Challenges are identified: (1) enable people to learn orders of magnitude more effectively, (2) enable people to learn at orders of magnitude less cost, and (3) demonstrate success by exemplary interdisciplinary education in complex systems science. A ten year ‘man-on-the-moon’ project is proposed in which FuturICT’s unique combination of Complexity, Social and Computing Sciences could provide an urgently needed transdisciplinary language for making sense of educational systems. In close dialogue with educational theory and practice, and grounded in the emerging data science and learning analytics paradigms, this will translate into practical tools (both analytical and computational) for researchers, practitioners and leaders; generative principles for resilient educational ecosystems; and innovation for radically scalable, yet personalised, learner engagement and assessment. The proposed Education Accelerator will serve as a ‘wind tunnel’ for testing these ideas in the context of real educational programmes, with an international virtual campus delivering complex systems education exploiting the new understanding of complex, social, computationally enhanced organisational structure developed within FuturICT.