Senior Product Manager

Maxine Spence

“We have decades of experience��creating levelled readers that build reading confidence. With��Green Sparks, we wanted to harness that��expertise��to��address��one of the biggest themes in education today: sustainability.“

As educators and publishers, we know that children��start��making��sense of the world��around them��long before they can fully articulate��how��they feel about it.��Many children today experience anxiety around issues like climate change and the state of the world.��It became��increasingly��clear to me that we needed a new kind of resource: one that would inform, empower, and inspire��children, rather than overwhelm��them.��

This��need��led to the creation of��, our new strand for international schools, designed for readers aged��four��to��seven. Our goal was simple, but ambitious: to introduce sustainability��to young readers��through engaging storytelling, rich non-fiction, and��age‑appropriate concepts.��What makes this��series unique is��the alignment��of��its��42��carefully levelled books��with the .��All the books are��dedicated to helping children understand and care about their world.

At OUP, we have decades of experience��creating levelled readers that build reading confidence. With��Green Sparks, we wanted to harness that��expertise��to��address��one of the biggest themes in education today: sustainability.

The series��is underpinned by our����system,��which incrementally increases the��level of challenge��and allows children to experience reading success by accessing a text��at the right level for them.��The Green Sparks series is��primarily phonically decodable,��because research shows that systematic synthetic phonics is the most effective way of teaching young learners to read.����We also��introduced����some��topic words��earlier��than��we would usually, where they were essential for��understanding;��sustainability��terms like “waste”��and “flood”��were carefully selected��to ensure that children��comprehend��core concepts.��

Before we started this project, there��was��a��lack��of resources that introduced��the��UN SDGs in a way young learners can��understand and engage with. There were no levelled readers supporting this topic��and certainly none that integrated phonics, global citizenship, and environmental education.��Green Sparks��fills that gap. Although it complements the , we designed it to be adaptable. Schools anywhere in the world, following any curriculum, can use it for reading practice, inquiry‑led learning, or cross‑curricular projects.��

A question I’m often asked is how we translate complex global goals into something meaningful for young learners. Fiction plays a particularly important role in this series. Stories help children explore challenges and emotions at a safe distance: a journey through a forest can spark conversations about habitats. Fiction lets readers step into someone else’s experience with empathy and imagination. At the same time, we knew non‑fiction was essential, not only for knowledge building, but because many young readers are naturally drawn to facts, diagrams, and real‑world imagery. The interplay between narrative and information is one of the series’ greatest strengths.��

In addition��to the clear progression and��levelling��for��every book, we provide��supportive teacher materials, such as��guided activities, prompts, and cross‑curricular suggestions to help adults scaffold understanding. Whether a child is reading independently or exploring a text with a teacher, the structure ensures that concepts are introduced gently but purposefully.��

We were also determined to reflect the global nature of sustainability. The authors contributing to��Green Sparks��come from a wide range of countries and cultural backgrounds, helping us present an authentically international viewpoint. Some books focus on local, everyday experiences while others explore larger global issues, from protecting coral reefs to supporting communities after an earthquake. This balance helps children understand both the worldwide scale of sustainability and the role they can play in their own communities.��

When children understand their world, they care about it. My hope is that��Green Sparks��not only builds reading fluency but nurtures a generation of young global citizens who feel empowered rather than overwhelmed by the challenges ahead.��

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Global Academic Publisher

Sophie Goldsworthy

“Our focus is on publishing the most authoritative, carefully reviewed scholarship we can find in support of our mission, on topics that matter to how people understand and navigate the world.”

Something is shifting how people relate to information. Not just what they believe, but who they trust to tell them anything at all.

The latest makes for sobering reading. Seven in 10 people globally are now unwilling or hesitant to engage with someone who holds different values or draws on different sources of knowledge. We are retreating into our own information worlds – and the walls are getting higher.

This is a cultural problem that raises a fundamental question for publishers: what is our role when trust itself is under strain?

comes at a moment when the publishing industry has every reason to reflect on what it stands for.

At OUP we think about this a lot. We are not driven by fleeting market trends, nor do we have an agenda. Our focus is on publishing the most authoritative, carefully reviewed scholarship we can find in support of our mission, on topics that matter to how people understand and navigate the world.

This sounds simple. In the current climate, it is anything but.

Expertise still counts, but it needs a champion

The consistently shows that people retain confidence in professions they associate with training, evidence, and public service: scientists, doctors, teachers. There is still a broad cultural appetite for expert-led information. People want to understand complex issues. They want reliable guides through a noisy world.

But that appetite is going unmet. Too much of the information environment rewards speed over substance, heat over light. Algorithms surface what provokes, not what illuminates – as we know from selecting rage bait as Oxford Word of the Year 2025. And in that environment, evidence-based publishing can struggle to compete for attention, even when it is exactly what people need.

This is where university presses have a distinctive role to play. We are active participants in the information ecosystem, and we have a responsibility to show up in it.

Publishing ideas that challenge and connect

One of the things I believe most strongly is that serious publishing is not just about providing answers. It is about building the intellectual infrastructure that helps people think better.

That means publishing works that deliberately sit across disciplines; content that brings together different fields of knowledge to shed new light on urgent problems. Our ��series does exactly this, commissioning research that bridges the humanities, sciences, and social sciences to take the questions that don’t fit neatly into any single box.

It also means actively seeking out the books that help people make sense of a turbulent moment. Richard Susskind’s�� does not tell readers what to conclude about artificial intelligence. It gives them the tools to think the question through themselves. Tim Lenton’s�� reframes the climate crisis not as an intractable catastrophe but as a system capable of rapid, positive change – if we understand its dynamics. These are not comfortable reads. They are demanding, rigorous, genuinely useful.

The case for rigour

If there is one thing I would want to say clearly to anyone who cares about the state of public knowledge, it is this: peer review is not a bureaucratic formality. It is a safeguard.

In an age of AI-generated content, where hallucination is an industry term rather than a metaphor, the ability to say “this has been checked, challenged, and verified by leading experts” is more valuable than it has been. The processes that are second nature to academic publishers – rigorous editorial standards, independent review, careful fact-checking – are exactly what the information environment is currently short of.��

And it’s part of our commitment to upholding standards that make our publishing trustworthy by design, not just by reputation.

A moment for mission

All publishers are operating within a complex and ever-changing environment. The AI disruption is not abstract. It is reshaping how research is conducted, how content is discovered, and how readers engage with ideas. None of that is going away.

But none of it changes the underlying need that serious publishers exist to meet. People want to understand the world. They want information they can rely on. They want to engage with ideas that reward the effort of sustained attention.

I am proud to work for an organization that is going out of its way to address that need. Because in a world pulling apart into competing information silos, rigorous, mission-led publishing matters more than ever before.��

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Director of Assessment, Data and Insights

Jonathon Speed

“The Oxford International Standardized Assessments allow teachers to fully understand their students’ strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to improve. The granularity of reporting across the curriculum, combined with the standardized nature of the results, gives a level of insight not previously achieved.”

As we open the first official test window for the Oxford International Standardized Assessments, I’m proud to mark an important step forward in our global education offer.

Developed collaboratively across OUP, the provide reliable, externally benchmarked, end-of-phase tests that give schools clear insight into learner progress. These assessments combine academic rigour with a low-pressure experience that helps prepare students for future learning.

Endorsed by the University of Oxford, Oxford International Standardized Assessments reflect our commitment to quality, consistency, and innovation in assessment.

The Oxford International Standardized Assessments are a series of digital, end-of-phase tests for students at key ages in primary and lower secondary. The assessments are aligned to both the and the English National Curriculum, in English or English as a second language, science, and mathematics.

Each subject assessment gives informative, data-driven insights with standardized performance scores. What this means in practice is that, for example, in science, a student could discover that they are high-scoring in biology with a deep knowledge of plants and animal behaviour, but still have areas to develop in their knowledge of states of matter in chemistry. This is a much more meaningful and useful method of analysis compared to a single, averaged science score.

For teachers and schools, this means that results can more easily highlight where a particular class, teacher, or year group have mastered an area of the curriculum, but also show where there may be more work to do in developing schemes of work in certain areas. The standardized nature of the assessments allows direct comparisons to be made between students, classes, and even between schools within school chains.

Through these assessments, students will be able to experience a more formal and rigorous exam-style setting in a safe and supportive environment. This is an important step in developing good exam practice, a skill that is continually improved on over time.

Additionally, the Oxford International Standardized Assessments have been certified by the University of Oxford for their design and approach to assessment, so every participating student who completes all their tests will receive a certificate, allowing them to celebrate their achievements.

All the assessments are digital. Most of the assessments are entirely auto-marked, while the extended writing test is manually marked online with no intervention required from teachers or schools. Because of this, results and certificates are available just a few days after a class completes the tests.

Insights gained from the pilot phase

During our pilot phase, we analysed over 26,000 tests and 1,500 questions individually to understand the difficulty and performance for all questions. This allowed us to balance our tests to ensure the difficulty progressed fairly and was equally spaced out throughout the assessments. We used the results from the pilot phase to build out standardization curves, allowing us to compare the results from students across all subjects and topic areas on a standard scale.

The granularity of reporting across the curriculum, combined with the standardized nature of the results, gives a level of insight not previously achieved.

If taken at the end of year 6, the teacher and student can be confident that their progression to secondary school is on a firm foundation. If taken at the end of year 9, the results can be used by the school to best support students as they embark on higher stakes learning, such as .

The assessments undergo an annual refresh to reflect changes in student knowledge and curriculum growth over time. We will seed new items into the assessment each year, allowing us to collect the necessary data to place them accurately into the difficulty model and adjust the standardization curves. We expect to add new subjects over time—but it’s too early to give specific details yet.

Find out more about the Oxford International Standardized Assessments .

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Managing Director, UK Education

Elizabeth Tyler

“Our ambition is clear: to empower teachers and learners with solutions that respond to the evolving needs of UK schools, today and for the future.”

The UK government’s recently published curriculum and assessment review marks a pivotal moment for education. The vision is clear: building a world-class curriculum for all and equipping young people for our rapidly changing world.

The review sets out a plan for a curriculum that enables teachers to impart critical knowledge and inspire a love of learning. It emphasizes the importance of strong foundations in the primary years, so that students embark on secondary education with confidence, enthusiasm, and curiosity. It also points out the importance of reading as a key skill to enable access to the complete curriculum and introduces new measures to support all students in becoming proficient readers.

The final curriculum will be published in spring 2027 and implemented from September 2028. While the revision of the curriculum presents a real opportunity, it will need strong implementation planning by school leaders and teachers. As Managing Director of UK Education at OUP, I see this as a chance to reaffirm what matters most. We must support teachers and learners with the knowledge, skills, tools, and confidence they need to help every child thrive in a changing world.

I’ve outlined below my six key take-aways from the report and how OUP can support:

Reading and literacy
The review reinforces the importance of reading, from learning to read and decode to cross-curricular literacy and reading for pleasure as drivers of attainment and engagement. Strong foundations in reading are critical for progression, and we welcome the introduction of the Year 8 reading test to ensure students continue to build confidence and fluency beyond primary school.

OUP has decades of expertise in phonics, early reading, and fostering a love of reading. Our trusted programmes including , ,�� (ELS), and have helped generations of learners, and our support for reading at Key Stage 3 enables learners to become confident readers in secondary school. We continue to collaborate with educators to provide evidence-based resources and professional development that empower teachers to nurture confident, motivated readers.

Oracy��
Oracy—the ability to express oneself fluently and communicate effectively—is increasingly recognised as essential for academic success, confidence, and wellbeing. It supports learning across subjects and equips students with vital communication skills for life beyond school.

The review recommends introducing an oracy framework for primary and secondary children, placing spoken language alongside reading and writing as a core skill. This reflects a growing understanding that oracy underpins learning and prepares students for future challenges.

OUP champions oracy through our publishing and partnerships. Techniques are embedded in Read Write Inc. and ELS, and are woven throughout . We also work with Voice 21, the UK’s leading oracy education charity, to define best practice for embedding oracy across subjects. Together, we have developed free resources such as and to help schools integrate oracy into everyday teaching.

Supporting learners with SEND
We welcome the review’s call for greater inclusion and its recommendation for evidence-led guidance on adapting curriculum and pedagogy for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This aligns with our long-standing commitment to creating resources that are accessible for all learners. For example, the is built around equitable learning, and its research-based inclusive approaches bring benefits to all.

Our recent shares insights from 260 schools, practical advice from SEND experts, and case studies of inclusive classrooms. From differentiated materials to targeted interventions, we work closely with schools to ensure every learner can make progress. As one school implementing our Read Write Inc. phonics programme commented: “Our children make progress in reading regardless of their background, language, or SEND status.”

AI and digital
Technology is transforming teaching, learning, and assessment. AI offers opportunities to personalize learning, reduce workload, and enhance classroom experiences, but only when guided by educational value. These developments make digital literacy essential skills for all learners.

The proposal for a new qualification in data science and AI for 16–18-year-olds reflects this shift, signalling the importance of preparing young people for a future shaped by intelligent technologies. At OUP, we believe technology should serve learning, not the other way around. Our explores the impact of AI on students’ skills and provides advice for schools looking to develop AI literacy in the classroom. As digital innovation accelerates, we remain committed to supporting educators with solutions that are ethical, evidence-based, and focused on meaningful outcomes.

Assessment
The review aims to ensure that assessment reflects the breadth of the curriculum and captures the strengths of every young person, striking the right balance between different assessment methods. We welcome the proposed reduction in assessment burden at GCSE, which should help alleviate pressure on students while maintaining high standards.

Effective in-school assessment is a powerful tool for driving improvement. It helps teachers identify learning gaps, tailor their teaching, and unlock progress for every student. When used well, assessment supports both academic achievement and learner confidence.

Our resources are designed to support formative and summative assessment across subjects, with tools that provide actionable insights for teachers. For example, plays a central role in schools’ digital learning ecosystems, integrating formative assessment tools that enhance teaching and learning. Alongside this, our comprehensive revision resources, such as , help students prepare effectively for exams, ensuring they feel confident and ready to succeed.

Subject changes and implementation
We’re looking forward to working alongside subject communities, teachers, and partners to bring these changes to life. Our focus is on continuing to help educators develop coherent, sequenced, knowledge-rich curricula and giving them the tools to adapt and deliver these effectively in their own contexts. We’re committed to increasing access to triple science, drawing on our expertise to remove barriers through targeted support, CPD, and high-quality resources.

Embedding diversity and inclusion across subjects and resources remains a priority, ensuring every learner sees themselves reflected in what they study. At the same time, we want to equip students with the critical skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world—building analytical thinking, media literacy, and financial literacy into the curriculum.

To achieve this, we’ll continue to innovate in ways that make teachers’ planning and delivery as efficient and effective as possible, leveraging AI tools and high-quality resources to save time and enhance impact in the classroom.

Continuing to lead with learning
Change is constant, but so too is our commitment to working with and empowering teachers. We combine trusted content with responsible technology, grounded in research and best practice. Our ambition is clear: to empower teachers and learners with solutions that respond to the evolving needs of UK schools, today and for the future.

Find out more about our response to the curriculum review .

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Director, Assessment

Andrew Nye

“By focusing on quality, relevance, and accessibility, institutions can not only meet the needs of today’s learners but also build a stronger, more trusted reputation in the wider education community.”

In today’s fast-moving education space, choosing the right English language assessment solutions can make a real difference. It’s a strategic decision that can shape how learners progress and how smoothly your institution operates, with the potential to improve outcomes, build confidence, and enhance the day-to-day experience for everyone involved.

From my experience, it’s not about ticking boxes or becoming a test centre. It’s about finding the right partner and the right tools to help your institution thrive.

Here are some of the most important things for institutions and decision makers to consider:

Once you’ve found the right assessment solution, it’s worth thinking about how your institution can take things a step further.

Becoming a test centre isn’t just a badge of honour. It brings real, practical benefits that support your learners and strengthen your institution’s position in the education landscape.

One of the biggest advantages is the added credibility that comes with being associated with a globally recognized assessment brand. It signals to students, parents, and partners that your institution meets high standards for quality, security, and professionalism. It also helps you stand out from the crowd, especially in a competitive market, by showing your commitment to trusted, high-quality assessment experiences.

Partnerships are another big plus. As a test centre, you can collaborate with local schools, universities, and employers to offer reliable, accessible testing option. These relationships can help raise your profile and bring in new learners through word-of-mouth and referral networks.

You’ll also benefit from ongoing training and support from the assessment provider. Whether it’s setting up systems, training staff, or staying up to date with best practices, you’ll have expert guidance throughout the process.

And perhaps most importantly, becoming an approved test centre contributes significantly to learner success. By offering high-quality assessments locally, you remove barriers like travel and scheduling, making it easier for students to take the next step in their academic or professional journey.

Essential skills for higher education entry tests

When a test is used as part of the entry process for higher education, it needs to do more than just meet basic requirements; it should give a clear picture of whether a student is ready to thrive in that environment.

Strong language proficiency is the foundation. A well-designed test should cover all four core skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. At more advanced levels, it should include mediation tasks too. At C1 level on the CEFR, for example, students should be able to combine skills in meaningful ways, like listening to a lecture and summarizing it in writing. These kinds of integrated tasks show how well learners can process, connect, and communicate ideas, just like they’ll need to do in real academic settings.

Then there are the academic and study skills that, while not always assessed directly, can still be reflected in the way a test is designed. Timed tasks, for instance, can mirror the pressure of managing deadlines or working under exam conditions. Writing tasks that require students to bring together information from multiple sources can give a good sense of how well they can research, evaluate, and build a coherent argument. These are skills that are essential for success at university.��

Choosing the right assessment solution and knowing how to make the most of it can have a lasting impact on both learners and institutions. From selecting tests that reflect real-world language use, to becoming an authorized test centre, to understanding what higher education institutions value in a test, every decision plays a part in shaping learner outcomes and institutional success.��

By focusing on quality, relevance, and accessibility, institutions can not only meet the needs of today’s learners but also build a stronger, more trusted reputation in the wider education community. And ultimately, that’s what it’s all about: giving learners the best possible chance to succeed, wherever their journey takes them.

You can find out more about English language assessment at OUP .

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Publisher for International, Caribbean

Stephen Holford

“Like many regions, the Caribbean faces challenges with student engagement and literacy rates. We asked ourselves how we could inspire primary students to develop lasting literacy and personal and social wellbeing skills.”

Teachers told us that Caribbean classroom dynamics are changing, and they need materials that are both recognizable and inspiring. To address the issue, we worked closely with teachers, Ministries of Education, and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to develop materials that take a relatable, topic-based approach to Language Arts.

The outcome is��Let’s Leap!, a course that encourages learners to enjoy and engage with language, literature, and the world around them.

To ensure positive engagement with the course, we started by listening to teachers, who reported that students were disinterested in reading, struggled to communicate, and had poor social skills.��

We assembled an author team led by Anna Yeomans, a specialist in English Language, with local experts from key Caribbean countries to work closely with the team. Anna developed a pan-Caribbean Programme of Study, integrating individual curricula into a cohesive framework.��

The course is based on three fundamental principles:

• Positive emotions: we retain information better when linked to positive emotions like interest, enjoyment, humour, and empathy.
• Personal relevance: information is more engaging when it connects to our life experiences and interests.
• Active learning: skills are mastered most effectively through active learning.

To implement these principles, we developed a 7-level course from Early Years to secondary school entrance exams. It includes student books, workbooks, and teacher’s guides with digital Kerboodle Books hosting audio extracts.��

Like many regions, the Caribbean faces challenges with student engagement and literacy rates. We asked ourselves how we could inspire primary students to develop lasting literacy and personal and social wellbeing skills.

Central to the course are integral characters who grow through the series and whose experiences are relatable, encouraging discussion and engagement.��

Our priority was keeping the Caribbean at the centre of the development journey. We continually asked how disengaged students would respond to our resources.��

Piloting Let’s Leap! in five countries allowed us to gather valuable feedback, presented as case studies showing the series’ transformative potential. The Portfolio of Connected Evidence informed further development and provided advocacy for our entry into the Primary Language Arts market.��

The feedback reassured us that we have a truly Caribbean identity that is student-centred, relatable, and aligned with developments in regional pedagogy. This collaborative effort puts Caribbean students and teachers first, furthering our publishing mission. The course feels ‘right,’ and that is reflected in the hugely positive response to it so far. I am deeply thankful to everyone who contributed.

Find out more about��Let’s Leap! .

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Head of Product Platforms, Academic

Tanya Laplante

“Our tools have different focuses, but together they demonstrate our commitment to improving research outcomes and upholding our mission: to make high-quality research and educational content as widely available as possible.”

Did you know that 402.7 million terabytes of data are generated each day? As powerful new AI tools promise to scour the web for the exact information users are looking for with only a click, tap, or prompt, the possibilities for the research journey are endless. However, peer-reviewed insights are not always returned by AI chatbots.��

At OUP, we’re committed to helping researchers harness the power of AI to more easily discover and engage with OUP’s trusted and vetted content. Our roadmap to develop native AI capabilities is guided by the desire to solve known user problems, such as helping researchers find reliable information at speed.��

So far in 2025, we have developed and rolled out three AI assistants. While each is designed to meet the unique needs of users, they were all built to maximize discoverability of and engagement with OUP’s trusted content.

The AI Discovery Assistant offers an enhanced search experience, supporting the research journey across our 500+ journals and 50,000+ books. Unlike traditional search—which is based on keyword hits in the text—the Discovery Assistant understands the context of user queries and filters to the most relevant results based on parameters (dates, format, topic) included in the user’s input/query. Each result is accompanied by an availability icon and a short AI-generated summary, so a user has the information they need before clicking on a result.

The AI Search Assistant on —the online home of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)—enables researchers to dive into the dictionary’s content quickly and more easily, by asking advanced search questions in natural language and bypassing the different tabs, filters, and taxonomies offered on the traditional search page. The tool cannot hallucinate as it is trained on URLs within the site rather than OED content, meaning its responses will direct you to the most relevant OED results to help you continue your research journey.

Finally, the Oxford Law Pro AI Research Assistant launched just this week as an integral part of , a new innovative product for legal researchers and professionals that combines quality-assured legal research and expert opinion with a conversational AI research assistant. The AI tool can be used to generate analysis, precise summaries of content, and trusted sources for further reading based on our world-leading portfolio of legal content.

Our tools have different focuses, but together they demonstrate our commitment to improving research outcomes and upholding our mission: to make high-quality research and educational content as widely available as possible.����

In addition to our rollout of our native AI features, we are publishing cutting-edge research on AI: the recent launch of included the publication of a new collection, .��

In both our approach to integrating AI tools across our products and through our publishing, we’re putting researchers’ needs at the heart of our work by helping them harness the power of this evolving technology in a secure and reliable way.��

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Senior Editor, Oxford English Dictionary

Fiona McPherson

“The continued success of, and interest in, Word of the Year shows that people are as fascinated by language as they have ever been, and not solely as a medium to communicate. It can provide a window into what is preoccupying us at any given moment—indeed, a look back at the previous winners and also the shortlists can really unlock the memories of what was going on in our lives.”

When the first Oxford Word of the Year—chav—was launched, reflecting language usage in the UK for 2004, Facebook was in its infancy, having been created early that same year and limited in its public availability. YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter were all still to be invented, as was TikTok. Even the internet was, relatively speaking, not as ubiquitous in people’s everyday lives as it would soon become.

The landscape was very different, with words being coined or popularized in much more traditional ways. Print media, books, and television all played their part in the spread of vocabulary, both familiar and brand new. The early choices for Word of the Year reflect this to a certain extent, with words like��simples,��bovvered, and��omnishambles having their roots in television, and winners like��credit crunch,��big society, and��squeezed middle seeming very much in the realm of print reportage. But even in those earlier days, the emerging importance of the digital world is evident with��podcast,��unfriend, and��gif��all featuring. The continuing impact of our online lives can be seen in our two most recent winner—goblin mode and��rizz—both having their origins in online spaces.

There are similarities in how the job of the lexicographer—those of us involved in the compilation and editing of dictionaries—has changed over the centuries. From the very early days of glossaries focused on hard words, to the publication of dictionaries like the which included illustrative examples and covered the language spoken by the people, social media is another way that unlocks the reality of how people use language. This can make the job of the dictionary editor easier—after all, there are so many more resources at our disposal.

But inevitably with this comes the real danger of information overload and, more dangerously, an increase in misinformation. The role of the lexicographer has perhaps never been more important as a dictionary aims to be a neutral, unbiased source that reflects how language is used in reality.

The continued success of, and interest in, Word of the Year shows that people are as fascinated by language as they have ever been, and not solely as a medium to communicate. It can provide a window into what is preoccupying us at any given moment—indeed, a look back at the previous winners and also the shortlists can really unlock the memories of what was going on in our lives.

Whether your interest is a professional one or that of an interested observer and speaker, words are important and Word of the Year can give us a chance to look back and reflect on what words have loomed large, whether familiar or brand new, whether on a personal or global level, and how they describe our experiences and the world around us—and how things have moved on, or not. We’re just as fond of��selfies,��omnishambles still seems an apt description for much that is going on in the world, the discourse around the climate hasn’t disappeared, and many of us are interested in who has, or doesn’t have,��rizz.

Even those winners which haven’t shown quite the same staying power are still of interest. And that’s perhaps the key thing about Word of the Year—some persist, some burn brightly and then fade away almost as quickly as they emerge, much like the events or concepts they describe. Neither is an indicator of how successful or otherwise a choice it was. And, speaking professionally, some of the words under consideration in any given year can sometimes give the lexicographers among us a sneak preview of what we might be including in our dictionaries in the years to come.

Whether it be in general conversations about our choice or active participation in voting for the winner from a shortlist, it seems Word of the Year is a highlight of the calendar.

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Director of Impact and Learning Design

Dr Penelope Woolf

“By combining the best in research-informed learning design and pedagogy with our extensive educational experience and expertise globally, we can design, develop, and evaluate our products and services to ensure that they deliver real impact in the most effective way possible.”

We have been very aware, over several years now, of the increasing demand for evidence around the impact that our products and services have on teaching and learning. This is backed up by with educators over the last two years through our UK and International Educational Research Forum, which included polls, a forum question, and a survey.

In a poll, the number of respondents saying that it is “very important” to have evidence about the impact of an educational resource (print or digital) before making a purchase went up from 46% in 2022 to 62% in 2023. In the survey, 63% of UK and 52% of International respondents said that “Senior Management is asking for evidence of impact”—this was up significantly from the previous year, highlighting that this need for evidence is no longer just a ‘nice to have’.

When we asked in our survey why they needed the evidence, the majority said that it was to “see how the product delivers against certain outcomes” and to “help to decide between different products”. One teacher highlighted why this is becoming ever more essential:

“As [education] budgets are so tight, it is really important to know that something is going to have a positive impact on outcomes before deciding to commit funds.”

At OUP, we have been focusing on providing this evidence, and and learning design is an excellent example of how we are supporting our customers in ensuring that our products and services are designed and developed to maximize educational outcomes for all.

Our approach ensures that we continue to think about the impact that our products and services have on teaching and learning throughout the product lifecycle, even after launch. By undertaking impact research, we gain valuable insights and credible evidence on how our products are making a positive impact on those educational outcomes that matter most to our customers. We are unique in that our impact studies use our rigorous, bespoke Oxford Impact Framework, developed with the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and supported by the Department of Education at the University of Oxford.

Learning design involves understanding the needs of learners, the learning objectives, and then selecting the appropriate pedagogies and strategies that deliver the intended outcomes in the most effective way possible whilst improving the whole learning experience.

Resources generated by AI will typically have had very little consideration given to the design and sequencing of the content. Without this, there is no assurance that the identified educational outcomes will be met.

We recently established our learning design principles, based on educational research and grounded in professional best practice, which enable us to set out activities in a way that puts learners at the core, and ensures that knowledge is not just gained but retained. Our guides—which have been reviewed by external experts—help teams to choose the most appropriate pedagogies and strategies, and offer advice on practical application as well as some research insights and a glossary.

What this all boils down to is that the impact of well-designed products and services is profound: when learning design is thoughtfully implemented with teachers and learners in mind, it can lead to improved student engagement, better retention of information, and maximize educational outcomes, reinforcing our reputation as a key leader in educational content. This is why we are increasingly focusing on the science of learning design, ensuring that our educational content is not only informative but also transformative.

By combining the best in research-informed learning design and pedagogy with our extensive educational experience and expertise globally, we can design, develop, and evaluate our products and services to ensure that they deliver real impact in the most effective way possible. Our holistic approach puts us in a good position to respond to our customers’ needs and the changing educational landscape across the globe.

Find out more about our work at Oxford Impact .

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