BERA is delighted to announce that, following a competitive recruitment process, a new editorial team has been appointed for the British Educational Research Journal (BERJ). From January 2024, the team will comprise six editors: Ming Cheng (Sheffield Hallam University), Kate Hoskins (Brunel University London), Alison MacKenzie (Queen’s University Belfast), Barbara Read (University of Glasgow), Billy Wong (University of Reading) and Yuwei Xu (University of Nottingham).

BERJ is an international peer-reviewed medium for the publication of articles of interest to researchers in education and has rapidly become a major focal point for educational research from throughout the world. BERA very much looks forward to working with the appointed editorial team to continue building BERJ’s reputation as a leading educational research journal and to introduce exciting new initiatives that will extend the journal’s reach across the four nations of the UK and internationally.

The team members say: ‘We are honoured to be the new editors for BERJ from 2024 and look forward to taking up this important role in the UK research community of education. As a team that includes members representing different generations, career stages, gender, ethnicity, countries, types of universities, and areas of education, our joint vision for the journal is to promote diverse knowledge about British and global education systems and matters. We aspire to develop BERJ as a flagship journal for and about educational studies, and to increase its international profile in the global community.’

BERA issued an open call for applications for the editorship of the journal in 2023, inviting proposals that set out a strategic vision for BERJ. Shortlisted applicants were selected for interview based on the strength of their proposals and their relevant experience. The selection panel was impressed by the appointed team’s shared vision for BERJ, their commitment to sustaining content quality while also introducing new ideas to the journal, as well as their cohesive operational plan to bring these ideas to fruition.

BERA would like to extend its sincere gratitude to the outgoing editors, David Aldridge, Gert Biesta and Emma Wainwright, for their invaluable work, dedication and support of the journal over the past six years. We are also grateful to the journal’s current associate editors, Christine Callender, Amanda Fulford, Kevin Smith and Reva Yunus, for their significant contributions to BERJ. We wish them all the very best for the future.

More information

BERJ is a generalist education journal published by Wiley on behalf of BERA. The journal is interdisciplinary in approach, and includes reports of case studies, experiments and surveys, discussions of conceptual and methodological issues and of underlying assumptions in educational research, and accounts of research in progress. With an impact factor of 2.3, the journal ranks 140th out of 269 in the education and educational research category. To find out more about BERJ, please visit this link.

BERA is a membership association and learned society committed to advancing research quality, building research capacity and fostering research engagement. BERA aims to inform the development of policy and practice by promoting the best quality evidence produced by educational research. Click here to find out more about becoming a member of BERA.