Dr. Sabine Zander, Director of the Innovation Lab at imc, discussed at Didacta 2025 how educational innovations can be brought into practice more quickly.
The conclusion is clear: Without better framework conditions, progress will be stalled!
3 Key Takeaways Summarized:
💡 From Data Scarcity to Data Abundance: Educational data could help improve learning opportunities—but concerns about data protection and a lack of infrastructure often stand in the way. We need clear regulations and powerful systems that enable the responsible use of educational data.
💡 Innovation Bottleneck Due to Bureaucracy: Young EdTech startups must prove their effectiveness but are not allowed to test their solutions on a large scale. At the same time, traditional learning materials are rarely questioned—despite mediocre international comparison results. We need to create space for innovation.
💡 Data Ecosystems as the Key: Cross-company and cross-institution data ecosystems enable the secure exchange of educational data and foster innovation. To scale data-driven educational innovations, we must strategically build these ecosystems and further develop them with stakeholders from politics, the public sector, business, and academia.
This is precisely where MERLOT, as well as the innovation projects POSSIBLE and EDGE (Prometheus-X), come into play.
