The impacts of redistributive quantum funding: Managing quality education research to extend talent, sustain openness and build toolkits

Australia's primary, secondary and service industries are now being supplemented by the emergence of (multilingual) knowledge economies. A key message from the decade-old debate over these changes is that knowledge creation is now a key source of socio-economic viability, community renewal and environmental sustainability. This chapter explores what this framing might mean for the quality and impact of education research given the restructuring and de-structuring of Australia's research funding assessment exercise. To begin, it reprises understanding of the 'generative impacts' of education research and thereby help give meaning to contemporary efforts to remake the idea and practice of 'quality education research'. It then explain three key elements driving renewed strategic planning efforts for managing the redeployment of the quality and impact of education research. The first point is that quality education research and its impact express and reflect the larger intellectual arcs and contributions of extended webs of talented knowledge producers. Second, it outlines the generative impacts associated with sustaining openness for education research via moves to improve access to quality research so as to enhance its impact on educational pedagogies, policies and politics. Third, it argues for advances in the instrumental and conceptual toolkits used for research. Building the capability and functionalities required for partnership- based research in education provides the context for this discussion