Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories
The Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories eV (LIfBi) at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg is a non-university research institution in the field of social sciences. The purpose of the association is to promote longitudinal research in educational science in Germany. The institute, founded in 2014, is a member of the Leibniz Association .
With the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), the largest educational study in Germany is located at LIfBi. An interdisciplinary network of excellence works together to carry out NEPS, bringing together the expertise of over 200 scientists across Germany. The integration of theoretical and methodological approaches from the fields of education, psychology, sociology and economics creates a unique database for researching educational processes in Germany. With more than 60,000 regularly tested and interviewed target persons from infancy to old age as well as 40,000 additionally interviewed persons from their environment, the NEPS opens up well-founded analysis options for educational research.
In January 2014 the project “BildungsLandschaft Oberfranken (BiLO)” started at LIfBi. The leading research question here is the relationship between individual educational decisions and perceived educational offers, taking into account the social space.
Since July 2016 the LIfBi has been conducting the study “Refugees in the German Educational System (ReGES)” with the aim of describing the groups newly immigrated to Germany and their educational pathways.
At the end of 2016, the cooperation project “Inclusion in Secondary Level I in Germany (INSIDE)” followed. As part of an inventory, INSIDE will for the first time provide comprehensive, reliable information on the current state of implementation of inclusion in lower secondary level in all 16 German federal states at school level.
In addition, numerous smaller third-party funded projects for the evaluation of NEPS data are located at the LIfBi.