ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the emergence of cross-border meetings by senior educational researchers which took place in a reconstructing Germany and under the auspices of the American British Zone commanders. Post-war development in European expert collaborations in educational research began with the post-war occupation of Germany and continued into the post-Sputnik world of Western Europe. These meetings may be viewed as limited historical cases but they are treated here as the forerunners of the later European Union strength in research data and the creation of a common European educational research space. The chapter discusses the post-war context and the American Occupation in West Germany; the creation of the UNESCO Institute in Hamburg; the formation of the International Project for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA); the problems of research cooperation in Europe, and, finally, the formation of a community, data and standards.
