ANGEL Conference 2025: Research in Global Education and Learning – for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability and Global Social Justice
Input by Liam Wegimont
GENE Executive Director
The ANGEL Conference 2025 marked the fifth edition of the Academic Network on Global Education & Learning (ANGEL) international conferences, dedicated to advancing the discourse on Global Education and Learning. Hosted at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin from 4-6 June 2025, the conference started with the welcoming words from event partners, and initial reflections on the focus and themes of the conference.
What a treat we have in store for you, and for us all, in the coming days…inspiring keynotes, challenging panel sessions, with cutting edge research that responds to the concerns of policymakers and addresses the themes of the Conference. These themes are broad, and immediate – Research in Global Education - for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability and Global Social Justice. Along with these themes, we are reflecting on the research and policy implications of the Dublin Declaration on Global Education to 2050– and looking at this as a red thread throughout the proceedings.
The issues that we deal with here are huge, and hugely important for the world, the present and the future. Democracy, peace, Human Rights and human flourishing, sustainability, social justice - these are not small, nor are they simple issues – and we are looking at them through the complex lens of the relationship between policymaking and research.
So, I need to say something about this, on behalf of GENE. Since GENE started almost 25 years ago– we have had a vision, now captured in the Dublin Declaration, of a world where all people in Europe – in solidarity with peoples globally, will have access to quality global education. Two dimensions to this vision, from the start – we weren’t just at this to improve education in Europe – though that was part of the plan. But at the core is solidarity with peoples globally. As Julius Nyere pointed out, when he argued that 100% of ODA should go to Global Education in Europe, etc. we are and have been the source of the problems; time to become one of the sources of the solution. We can’t do that without including all people in Europe, in particular ways. So this is a universalist, rights-based vision of Global Education.
And the other thing that characterised GENEs vision from the start, is the fact that we cannot improve reach without improving quality; put otherwise: we can’t improve policy without adequate research. GENEs first Conference, more than 20 years ago, in London, was focused on just that – research and quality in Global Education.
“Policymakers need research if they are to really create policy in the public good. Of course policy can be made without recourse to facts, to evidence, to research, to knowledge. It’s happening in front of our eyes as we speak, in the USA. And we can see, very clearly, that George Orwell and Hannah Arendt were right – policy that is not based on truth, on facts, on evidence, on research – well, that’s the quickest way to undermine democracy and head in the direction of fascism.”
But if policymakers need research, in GENE we also firmly believe that researchers need policymakers to inform research agendas, to ensure that at least a part of the emerging research in this burgeoning field of global education and learning research, has a policy focus, and is policy relevant or policy-priority informed.
We need to forge alliances that are steeped in the power of policy research; of policy that is informed by research, and research that pays attention to policy. In GENE we know that this relationship is neither linear nor simple; and pretending either will not serve us well.
So in GENE, we co-founded and are involved in ANGEL not for the good of our health, nor because the good people in ANGEL are really sound, intelligent, committed, brilliant and kind global education people who share our values. Its because we see that policymakers and researchers in the field of GE need to build research agendas together.
The world as we look around is in turmoil - genocide through famine; war of aggression in Europe; responses that prioritise an arms race over peacebuilding; ecocide and biocide; weaponisation of difference; bullying and demonisation of tiny minorities like our trans sisters and brothers and our migrant brothers and sisters; the mining of peoples minds and hearts for private gain and the undermining of democratic engagement and processes; the defence and justification of war crimes - it’s not a pretty picture. It is not a pretty picture…and yet, we are educators – and whether as policymakers determined to maintain the values of Global Education in the face of, well, a tidal wave trying to reverse our gains and denigrate the values we stand for; or as researchers dealing with challenging and at times unsurmountable academic and third level contexts – we are educators; and so as Paulo Freire put it – it is our job to forge hope in the face of despair. Not optimism, not naïve or empty hope, not just a call for hope; but the active creation of hope as an antidote to the despair and chaos that fascism would prefer.
So where to find Hope? Quiet simply – hope is available, here – in the nexus between policy and research.
I want to return to the words of Mr Vogt regarding the surveys of German young people and their concerns. Last year, GENE was glad to contribute a chapter to the OECD Development Cooperation Report, which was focused on the fight against poverty and inequality and the just green transition. In chapter 15, together with GENE colleagues, we focused on the available survey data – what do people think and know in regard to these issues – of poverty eradication, of the fight against inequality, locally and globally, and of efforts towards a just green transition. The evidence is startling – we may think, from the news and social media, that the world is going to hell in a handbag. Well, strangely, while I wouldn’t like to overstate the case, surveys of public opinion provide more hope.
Finally, I want to return to thank our co-hosts from BMZ and from Engagement Global – not only for the tremendous support in organising this Conference; but also, for sowing seeds at the birth of GENE. Over 20 years ago, one of Dr. Katja Wegelt’s predecessors, Mr Christian Wilmsen from BMZ, together Mr Norbert Noisser from InWent, suggested that Doug Bourn and I might meet with Professor Annette Scheunpflug – to learn from how Germany encourage the nexus between policy and research. We went to Nurenburg to meet Professor Scheunpflug, and have been learning from Germany ever since. So thank you, Dr Vogt, and your predecessor.
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