The DIE | German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning is a non-university research institute that addresses the socially and educationally relevant task of providing a scientific foundation for adult learning and education and thereby contributing to its successful development. As a central institution serving research, policy, and practice, the DIE supports and promotes stakeholders in the field of continuing education through scientific knowledge and services. Its activities range from application-oriented and/or basic research to the provision of research infrastructure and advisory services for practice and policymaking.
Against this background, the institute’s activities pursue a dual objective. On the one hand, they support scholarship and research in adult education through the publication of national and international research outputs and the provision of research data. On the other hand, this knowledge contributes to the development and sustainable professionalization of educational practice. The institute aims to identify and address the needs of research, practice, and policy alike. Another objective is to foster productive exchange with international stakeholders in order to increase the visibility of adult education in Germany within an international context and to strengthen its position in European educational discourse.
The DIE’s research and infrastructure services are delivered by staff working across five closely interconnected departments that collaborate in numerous projects. At the core of the institute’s research activities is adult learning, including its conditions, forms, and outcomes. Research covers all areas of continuing education, including adult learning processes, the didactic design of educational programmes, educational personnel, the organisation and management of continuing education providers in different institutional contexts, and the continuing education system with its financial, political, and legal dimensions.
Knowledge transfer is also a key element of the DIE’s profile and has long been an important part of the institute’s work. The relevant department uses publications, online portals, and practitioner networks as transfer channels. In doing so, it provides access to research findings, prepares them for specific target groups, and supports the professionalization of the field of practice. Its understanding of knowledge transfer is multidimensional and includes the transfer of knowledge into practice as well as the flow of knowledge and experience from practice back into research.
The Department of Research Infrastructures provides information and services while also investigating how people perceive and process information. It offers services for research, policy, and practice in adult and continuing education. Its core research infrastructures include the Statistics on Adult and Continuing Education and the DIE Library. These services are based on scientific evidence and follow current standards of open and transparent research in accordance with the FAIR Data Principles.
Key Activities and Services
• Through wb-web, a portal for adult and continuing education instructors, the DIE operates a nationwide and unique information infrastructure serving more than 530,000 full-time, freelance, and part-time educators in adult education. wb-web provides fundamental information about the field and a knowledge base in adult education. All materials are made available as Open Educational Resources (OER).
• The panel study Teachers in Adult Education – a Panel Study (TAEPS), launched in 2022, examines teaching staff in adult and continuing education across Germany. Its aim is to provide a comprehensive picture of qualifications, employment conditions, competencies, and professional development activities. To this end, several thousand instructors from all areas of continuing education are surveyed over a five-year period. Standardised surveys collect information on employment biographies, attitudes towards continuing education, and other relevant factors. The results are intended to provide an evidence-based foundation for educational policymaking, provider decision-making, professionalization, and competence development. The data are processed by the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) and made available as a Scientific Use File. The first data release (DOI:10.5157/TAEPS:SUF:1.0) contains information from a cross-sectional survey of 1,000 continuing education providers and more than 2,500 instructors from the first longitudinal survey wave. The study was preceded by a comprehensive mapping of continuing education providers in Germany.
• The lernen Competence Network promotes dialogue between research and practice for the digital transformation of schools and teacher education. Four competence centres bring together expertise from around 200 cross-state research and development projects in the fields of STEM, Languages/Society/Economics, Music/Arts/Sports, and School Development. The DIE participated in the MINT-ProNeD and KuMuS-ProNeD projects and is represented in two areas of the network’s transfer office. This office disseminates project results, further develops them in cooperation with practitioners, and supports their nationwide transfer into teacher education. The DIE contributes its expertise in the professional development of educational personnel.
• The meta-project Language Education in an Immigration Society places the research questions, strategies, and findings of the funded individual projects, as well as their contributions to the further development of educational practice, within a broader scientific and societal context. Through its own transfer and communication activities, and by supporting the funded projects, it contributes to knowledge and technology transfer and assists with dissemination and communication activities.
• The DIALOG Practice Network for Knowledge Transfer and Innovation promotes exchange between research and practice in the field of adult education. In regular meetings, network partners identify future challenges and explore ways in which practice and research can respond to them together. The network provides DIE researchers with a forum for presenting and discussing their findings and for conducting application-oriented basic research. When the testing of new methods and instruments results in promising research-based solutions, these are actively disseminated throughout the field. The DIALOG Practice Network thus sees itself as both a venue for and a driver of research-based innovation.
• Educational Reporting: The DIE communicates research findings to policymakers and practitioners through educational reporting. In its publication series DIE Survey: Data and Reports on Continuing Education, the institute publishes current findings from empirical studies on the continuing education system, including in open-access formats. Examples include:
- Contributions to the national education report Education in Germany;
- Participation in the Tenth Federal Government Commission on Ageing Reports on the topic Education and Learning in Later Life (Hannes Schröter, Academic Director, is a member of the commission);
- The wbmonitor provider survey, conducted in cooperation with the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB).
