Institutions

The DIPF is a service institution carrying out research tasks. It supports educational practice, educational policy, educational administration and educational research.

"The trend of public budgets and the low level – by international standards – of public spending on education jeopardize the implementation of planned reforms to the educational system,” warn the experts in a report published by DIPF in October 2003 on education in Germany. Efforts to reform the educational system, though laudable, in many cases have yet to get beyond the planning or testing stage.

This assessment points up one of the DIPF’s main tasks: to document, describe and analyze educational trends in Germany as in other countries in and outside of Europe. Its Website provides a wealth of information about every aspect of basic and applied research in the fields of training and education. The Institute’s experts advise policymakers and administrators on educational matters at national and international level.
Another object of the DIPF is to promote young academics and scientists.

Five units

The Institute’s activities break down into five units. Its Educational Information Centre features a German Educational Server, an educational information system (FIS), an information and documentation service as well as its Frankfurt Research Library. The Information Centre gathers and classifies information pertaining to education and makes it accessible in user-friendly form to researchers and practitioners in the field.

Its German Educational Server is the internet guide on education providing high-quality information – and free of charge – including everything from a European database, a math workshop, tutoring in Latin, a directory of school psychologists, to general information about the educational systems in all 16 German Länder.

The library and archive services provided by the Educational History unit promote research in the history of education and enrich the Institute’s own studies in the field.

Its Educational Quality and Evaluation unit investigates the conditions, processes and effects of teaching and learning and develops methods of measuring educational trends based on statistical indices.

In times of scarce funds, the State has to rethink its role in safeguarding the quality of public education. The DIPF’s Educational Funding and Management unit draws up strategies to streamline administrative processes. These reforms are aimed at organizing public administration in the educational sector along the lines of a service enterprise that combines economic and "customer-oriented” thinking.

International and interdisciplinary

The Education and Culture unit analyzes social conflicts and the development of systems of cultural norms (legal concepts, social conventions, ethics, religion etc.). These areas are investigated along intra- and inter-cultural lines in relation to educational processes.

To attain this broad perspective, the DIPF works in an international network with universities, research institutes and educational organizations. In Germany the Institute cooperates with the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, the Gesellschaft zur Förderung Pädagogischer Forschung (Society for the Advancement of Educational Research) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Bildungsverwaltung (German Society for Educational Administration). The institute maintains a close relationship with the Society for Educational Science (DGFE) and the German Association of Psychology (DGPs).

In addition to these various spheres of activity, the DIPF runs two libraries. Its Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung (Library for Research in the History of Education) in Berlin has 700,000 volumes, making it the second-largest educational library in Europe; and its Frankfurt Research Library of 200,000 volumes ranks among the most important libraries in the field of educational research.

The institute, a foundation under public law, was established in 1951. Its head office is in Frankfurt am Main. It is funded by the Federal and the Länder Governments.