The first FUTURE EDUCATION Early Career Award was presented on 28 August 2025 as part of the EARLI Conference 2025 at the University of Graz to young female researchers who have achieved outstanding research results. This year, the award was presented in four categories, which are assigned to the clusters of the FUTURE EDUCATION research network.

Papers could be submitted if they were published in a scientific journal as part of a dissertation or within two years of completing the dissertation. The submitted papers were subjected to a single blind peer review process, whereby each paper was reviewed by both a reviewer from the FUTURE EDUCATION network and a reviewer from the EARLI community with a corresponding research focus.

Congratulations to all four award winners!

Babette Bühler

"Temporal Dynamics of Meta-Awareness of Mind Wandering During Lecture Viewing: Implications for Learning and Automated Assessment Using Machine Learning"

FUTURE EDUCATION Award 2025 - Educational technology(ies): interdisciplinary, innovative, disruptive

Dr Babette Bühler has been a postdoctoral researcher for human-centred technologies for learning at the Technical University of Munich since August 2024 . She received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Tübingen (2024) with a thesis on multimodal machine learning for automated assessment of attention-related processes. Previously, she earned an M.Sc. in Data Science (2020) and a B.A. in Sociology (2016) at the University of Mannheim.

Line Walquist Sørli

"Are Speech Sound Difficulties Risk Factors for Difficuities in Language and Reading Skills? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis"

FUTURE EDUCATION Award 2025 - Language(s) as a tool for social participation

Line Walquist Sørli has been a doctoral candidate in special education at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway since January 2022 . Her dissertation is entitled "Childhood Speech Sound Development and Difficulties: Relationship with Language and Reading".

In addition to her doctoral research, she has been a PhD candidate in the UiT-ReadWell projectsince January 2022 , where she is conducting research as part of a randomised controlled intervention study aimed at improving reading comprehension in Norwegian children with reading difficulties. Since January 2024, she has also worked as a speech-language pathologist in private practice, where she provides assessment and intervention services for children and adults with speech, language, voice, fluency (stuttering) or dysphagia difficulties. Previously, she was a Master's student in Speech-Language Pathology at the same university from August 2017 to December 2020.

Her professional experience also includes a position as a consultant for child language and reading development in an inter-municipal network in Northern Norway (2023), where she advised teachers on supporting language and reading development and conducted workshops to improve reading and writing skills.

Eligibility Criteria

• The article must be published in a peer-reviewed journal;
• The article must be written in English;
• The publication date of the article must be during the PhD studies or within two years after obtaining the PhD;
• Only papers published from 2023 onwards will be accepted;
• The proponent must be the corresponding author of the article (the first author may submit with permission from the corresponding author);
• The research adresses topics in the field of education, learning, development and teaching;

• The proponent participates in the EARLI 2025 Conference in Graz, where the award ceremony will take place.

   

Evaluation Criteria

• Transdisciplinary approach: Research integrates methods, theories and/or frameworks from two or more disciplines.
• Innovation and originality: Submission presents novel ideas, methods and/or results that advance research related to education, learning, development and teaching.  
• Research excellence: The applied research methods are state-of-the-art.  

• Implications for educational practice: The obtained findings have implications for educational practice.  

   

Submission Guidelines

• The completed nomination form (PDF);  
• A digital copy (PDF) of the published article.  

Nominations must be received by the 15th of April 2025 (midnight CEST) via ConfTool from 1st of March 2025. The winner information will be provided by the 30th of May 2025. 

Review process and award presentation

In a first step, all submissions are screened whether they meet the eligibility criteria. Those who meet these criteria are scored by two independent researchers with regard to the evaluation criteria. Based on the mean ratings in these criteria, the highest-scoring articles are selected for the award. For each research cluster of the FUTURE EDUCATION program a maximum of one award will be presented. 

The research clusters are:

• Pluralism and diversity in educational processes
• Languages as a tool for social participation
• Educational technologies: interdisciplinary, innovative, disruptive
• STEM+ for the sustainable development of our society

The award will be presented during the  EARLI 2025 Conference in Graz by the scientific board of the FUTURE EDUCATION program of the University of Graz.

Each award is endowed with EUR 1,000. In addition, a special feature on the FUTURE EDUCATION website on the award winners and their work will be published.