Research unit
SHIFT Research Unit
Led by Thibault CoppeProfessor, Université libre de Bruxelles
About the unit
Rooted in educational policy analysis, discourses on teacher professionalism and research on teacher professional development, SHIFT produces empirical and theoretical contributions on the shifts reshaping the teaching profession. It promotes interdisciplinary dialogue and comparative, context-sensitive analysis, bridging global trends and their local enactments.
The unit sits within the Educational Sciences Research Centre, in the Faculty of Psychology, Educational Sciences and Speech Therapy at the Université libre de Bruxelles.
Projects
Teacher attrition in the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles
Analysis of teacher attrition across entire cohorts, from longitudinal administrative data, within a segmented labour market framework. Conducted by Thibault Coppe.
Diversification of teacher workforces
Since January 2026
The imaginary of what a teacher is varies across time and space, and shifts with current trends of teacher workforce diversification, alongside the institutional redefinitions that follow from changing conditions of entry into the profession. The project examines initial teacher education provision and the conditions of entry into the workforce from that angle, since what a teacher is cannot be separated from how teachers are educated, and how they are educated cannot be separated from what a teacher ought to be. Conducted by Jo Bjørkli Helgetun.
When the evidence-based movement travels into education research
The evidence-based movement has spread through education research, where randomised controlled trials sit at the top of a hierarchy of methods. The project asks what that transfer does to the way research questions and methods are chosen, what it does to the teaching profession, and what the debate around it says about the capacity of education research to reflect on its own ways of producing knowledge. Led by Thibault Coppe, with Jo Bjørkli Helgetun.
The Teacher and The State
Understanding How Global Initiatives Can Fail Teachers
Book forthcoming
The project behind the book of the same title, due in the coming months. Led by Jo Bjørkli Helgetun, with Gerald LeTendre and Thibault Coppe.
Masterization of initial teacher education
Starts October 2026
A socio-institutional analysis of the implementation of the masterization reform in French-speaking Belgium. Doctoral project of Marie Mathieux.
RelatED
Starts December 2026
Description coming soon.
Our team
Thibault Coppe
Head of unit · Professor
Jo Bjørkli Helgetun
Postdoctoral researcher
The unit's specialist in comparative research and policy analysis. Has worked extensively on teacher education policy and on the use of evidence in policymaking. PhD at UCLouvain on an ERC project, then F.R.S.-FNRS postdoctoral researcher (chargé de recherches), before joining the unit.
Charlotte Kohlloffel
Postdoctoral researcher
Comparative research on the regulation of initial teacher education and workforce entry, with Italy and Belgium as main cases. PhD at the University of Turin, then at the OECD, first as an intern and then on contract, before joining the unit.
Marie Mathieux
Doctoral researcher
Doctoral research on the institutional implementation of initial teacher education reform in French-speaking Belgium.
Publications and presentations
Selected publications
Selected presentations
Open tools
The unit develops and maintains open applications for research methods: SLRcraft, NetFabric, StatFabric and ScaleForge, with PolicyTrace in development. They are free to use. See the tools page.
Contact
Address
SHIFT Research Unit, Educational Sciences Research CentreFaculty of Psychology, Educational Sciences and Speech Therapy
Université libre de Bruxelles
Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50
1050 Brussels, Belgium