ABSTRACT
Researchers and practitioners often feel that the demonstrated merits of their work should be sufficient to drive adoption by others. However, in practice, in education, new research findings or even best practices spread slowly, if at all. Achieving significant adoption usually requires a project specifically addressed to this: a change project. Even when change is explicitly called for and funded, only some projects can truly be characterised as change projects. Many others claim this while retaining a structure which only leads to research outcomes. Research and change projects have different goals and therefore must be constructed quite differently. The aim of a research project is to establish new knowledge, whereas the aim of a change project is to persuade people to change their practice based on existing knowledge. We discuss seven major decisions that shape a true change project.
