RITES (Research into International Teaching and Education for Sustainable development) was established nearly fifteen years ago to conduct and promote research related to the challenges the global community faces in seeking to expand and improve education. RITES sits within the Education Futures Research Cluster at The Open University, whose remit is to investigate teaching and learning in order to understand and shape more equitable and innovative learning opportunities.

Our research is focused on the work, training and professional development of those who support learning anywhere in the world; our research locations have included Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean but are not restricted to any particular region.

RITES’ major interests include strategies for teacher education at mass scale, the use of digital technologies, open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) in professional development and pedagogy, English language teaching, inclusion and the roles of gender and language in teaching and learning. Work in RITES is rooted in socio-cultural understandings of teaching and learning, but our emphasis on collaborative research enables robust interdisciplinary approaches. Wherever appropriate, our work aligns closely with the global sustainability agenda.

We work closely with the University’s International Teacher Education and Development (ITED) group, which develops large-scale teacher education initiatives across the world, and the Open University’s International Development and Inclusive Innovation Strategic Research Area.

We regularly collaborate with colleagues from higher education institutions, NGOs and other practitioners in partner countries to enhance the policy-relevance, dissemination, and impact of our research