Laboratory, University, Training, and Experimental Schools in Europe: A Comparative Institutional Mapping Study
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This study provides the first systematic comparative mapping of laboratory, university, training, and experimental schools across Europe, addressing a significant gap in the literature on research-embedded schooling. Although these institutional forms are frequently grouped under shared labels, the analysis demonstrates that they represent structurally distinct configurations of governance, research intensity, and links to teacher education. Drawing on documentary analysis and secondary sources, the study develops a multidimensional typology encompassing institutional type, legal status, grade span, and degree of research embeddedness. The findings reveal four dominant European configurations: research-intensive ecosystems concentrated in Germany, the Netherlands, and the Nordic countries; medium-intensity systems centred on university-affiliated teacher-training schools, such as in Finland, Austria, and Belgium; low-intensity experimental-school systems across Southern, Eastern, and Balkan Europe; and hybrid models exemplified by Greece and Luxembourg. These variations highlight profound asymmetries in the structural capacity of education systems to support design-based research, longitudinal inquiry, and research-informed teacher education. The analysis further shows that training-oriented practice schools, despite their strengths in clinical preparation, rarely evolve into autonomous research institutions without explicit university governance and sustained research mandates. Overall, the study positions research-embedded schools as a crucial but unevenly distributed component of European educational infrastructure, with important implications for teacher education, discipline-based education research, and evidence-informed school development.
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