With computers and digital technologies increasingly shaping all of our lives, it’s more important than ever that every young person, whatever their background or circumstances, has meaningful opportunities to learn about how computers work and how to create with them. But what works in computing education isn't yet fully understood and more investment in high-quality research is needed.

A joint initiative between the University of Cambridge and the Raspberry Pi Foundation will focus on increasing our understanding of what works in teaching and learning computing, with a particular focus on young people from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.

The Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, based at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, will combine expertise from both institutions, undertaking rigorous original research and working directly with teachers and other educators to translate that research into practice and effect positive change in young peoples’ lives.

The Centre seeks to achieve long-term impact by conducting original research as well as working with its partners to turn new research results into practice, including by working closely with the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s educational programmes.
 
The scope will be computing education — the teaching and learning of computing, computer science, digital making, and wider digital skills — for school-aged young people in primary and secondary education, colleges, and non-formal settings.

It will begin by focusing on three broad themes:

• Computing curricula, pedagogy, and assessment, including teacher professional development and the learning and teaching process
• The role of non-formal learning in computing and digital making learning, including self-directed learning and extra-curricular programmes
• Understanding and removing the barriers to computing education, including the factors that stand in the way of young people's engagement and progression in computing education

The Centre also hopes to establish collaborations with universities and researchers in other countries, including the USA and India.

This new initiative builds on a longstanding partnership between the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the Department of Computer Science and Technology, which goes back to the creation of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the invention of the Raspberry Pi computer in 2008. More recent collaborations with the University of Cambridge include Isaac Computer Science, an online platform that is already being used by 2000 teachers and 18,000 students of A-level Computer Science in England, and that we will soon expand to cover GCSE content.