IPN part of new federal and state initiative on digital teaching and learning

An initiative on digital teaching and learning, bringing together the federal and state levels in Germany, is now launched and will run until the end of 2030, with the purpose of supporting evidence-based, sustained transformation in teacher education in the context of advancing digitalization. A component of the Digital Pact 2.0, the initiative seeks to draw on the experience gained in the lernen:digital consortium. The IPN is part of the initiative’s network-building and knowledge transfer team, which commenced its work on the first of October 2026.

Germany’s education system is facing the challenge of equipping children and young people to navigate an increasingly digital world. Teachers and senior school leadership have a central role in this regard, and need professional development to learn how to use digital technologies in a way that supports teaching and learning and helps students acquire subject skills.

With this context in mind, Germany’s federal and state authorities have come together to launch an initiative on digital teaching and learning with the aim of creating innovative, evidence-based approaches to teacher education in the context of digitalization and establishing them firmly in the practice of professional development in education. The initiative, a component of the Digital Pact 2.0, is scheduled to run until the end of 2030 and will receive total funding of 250 million Euro over its duration.

Network-building and knowledge transfer team begins work on October 1 2026

The initiative’s network-building and knowledge transfer team represents a continuation of the work done in the lernen:digital consortium over the past three-and-a-half years; drawing on those structures and experiences, it will seek to create links between researchers and practitioners and provide support for transferring research findings into teacher training across its three stages. Two academics from the University of Potsdam, Katharina Scheiter, professor of digital education, and Dirk Richter, professor of education research, will act as academic leads.

The other universities involved in the project are the University of Tübingen, Technical University of Munich, and the University of Kassel. There are also research institutes from the Leibniz Association on board; these are the German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning (DIE); the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in education; the IPN, with its affiliated German Centre for Mathematics Teacher Education; and the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM). The team additionally has a partnership with a civil society organization, the Forum Bildung Digitalisierung.

Five themed “competency clusters” will launch in succession from the spring of 2027 onward. Their topics are: using digital aids in the subject classroom; data- and AI-assisted teaching; digitaler Souveränität; digital leadership; and vocational education. Their purpose is to help teachers and school leaders acquire skills for the digital realm and work with education practitioners to harness research findings for school development in the digital age.

Background to this story

The network-building and transfer team is receiving funding from the German Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth as part of Germany’s federal and state-level initiative on digital teaching and learning, a component of the Digital Pact 2.0, and from the federal Special Fund for Infrastructure and Climate Neutrality.

The website of the predecessor initiative, https://lernen.digital , is currently undergoing revision and will publish further details of the consortium’s activities, the network-building and knowledge transfer team, and the five “competency clusters” in the coming months.