Becky Francis

Professor Becky Francis is Director of the UCL-Institute of Education (IOE). Before this, she was Professor of Education and Social Justice at King’s College London. She has followed a research career focusing on education and social justice, incorporating education policy work, for example in her previous roles as Director of Education at the RSA, and as Standing Advisor to the Parliamentary Education Select Committee. She regularly serves as a consultant to Governments and international agencies on education policy matters.

Her policy inputs and publications have focused on social mobility and educational quality, including expertise in academies policy, teacher development and careers, school quality and access, and in/equalities in educational attainment. 

Best known academically for her work on gender and achievement, Becky's academic expertise and extensive publications centre on social identities (gender, ‘race’ and social class) in educational contexts, social in/equality, and social identity and educational achievement, and gender theory. Becky was a member of the UK REF 2014 sub-panel for Education, and has acted as a judge for various practitioner awards panels, including the National Pupil Premium Awards and the TES Teacher of the Year awards. She is currently directing the Education Endowment Foundation-funded project ‘Best Practice in Grouping Students’, a mixed methods study involving 140 English secondary schools, investigating attainment and non-attainment grouping in relation to social inequality.