Special Issue on Mobilizing an Effective, Equitable, and Just Data and Evidence Ecosystem for Education in Crisis and Conflict Contexts

The window for submissions to the below Call for Papers closed on 1 December 2025

Projected publication: March 2026

Education Cannot Wait estimates that 234 million children and adolescents in 60 countries affected by crises, including 85 million children who are out of school, require urgent support to access quality education. Ensuring equitable and effective education in conflict, crisis, and emergency settings requires trustworthy, timely, and accessible evidence on which to base policymaking, programming, and funding decisions. Increasing the availability, uptake, use, translation, and localization of quality education in emergencies (EiE) data and evidence requires collective attention toward the development of a robust, inclusive, and accountable data and evidence ecosystem.

JEiE seeks research articles and field notes that draw on and advance existing knowledge on EiE and build novel evidence that addresses key questions related to the EiE data and evidence ecosystem, including, but not limited to:

Around what principles is the EiE data and evidence ecosystem organized? What does effective, equitable, and just leadership of this ecosystem look like?
What challenges does the present political moment pose for coordination on data and evidence issues? What political or financial conditions create an enabling environment for the EiE data and evidence ecosystem?
What constitutes effective financing of the EiE data and evidence ecosystem? What are the most significant financing gaps, and what are the most important linkages to build upon for financing data and evidence in EiE?
What role does capacity sharing and institutional capacity strengthening play in developing the EiE data and evidence ecosystem?
What role does standardization of data and measures, including efforts to standardize core indicators, play in EiE? What is the relationship between standardization and localization?
Where gaps in our understanding of particular EiE themes, issues, or contexts persist, why is there a lack of suitable evidence? What causes these evidence gaps to persist? Why are some evidence gaps harder to address than others?
How does the structure of funding work, and how might this influence evidence gaps in EiE? What frameworks or practices exist for identifying evidence gaps and generating robust, novel evidence to address these gaps systematically?
What principles of ethical collection, storage, sharing, and use of data are especially critical in humanitarian, fragile, and conflict-affected contexts? How are these ethical principles enacted in EiE settings?
How can the EiE data and evidence ecosystem be (re)organized to put the focus on crisis-affected communities’ evidence priorities, needs, and agendas? What models exist for localization and incorporating indigenous ways of knowing into evidence generation, uptake, and use?
What practices support the accessibility, relevance, and usability of research findings for educators? How does the EiE data and evidence ecosystem support teaching and learning in practice? For example, where teachers have adopted evidence-based approaches in language learning instruction, what factors facilitated this uptake?
What does effective and equitable coordination or collaboration among stakeholders at different levels (global, national, regional, local, etc.) in the EiE data and evidence ecosystem look like? What frameworks exist for modelling coordination efforts?

Recognizing the global scope of these issues, JEiE seeks submissions from all regions of the world. However, only manuscripts written in English will be considered for publication at this time. If you need assistance with this requirement, please contact [email protected].

All research articles are subject to a double-anonymous peer review process. Research articles should be 9,000 words or fewer, including references and a 200-word abstract. Field notes submissions should be 4,000 words or fewer, including references and an abstract. Formatting and references should follow the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition author-date convention. More information about preparing and submitting manuscripts via PeerTrack is available here.

Submissions are reviewed on a rolling basis.

Please contact the Editorial Office at [email protected] with any questions.