Our Work
Global TIES for Children transforms cutting-edge research into practical, scalable solutions for children’s learning and development—especially in low-resource and crisis-affected settings.
Since our founding in 2014, we’ve grown into one of the leading university centers worldwide focused on early childhood and primary-school-aged children. Our interdisciplinary team combines developmental science, education research, measurement expertise, and deep partnerships with local and international actors to bridge the gap between research and real-world impact.
How We Work
We advance our impact through three complementary strategies:
Generate actionable evidence
to improve holistic learning outcomes that uses mixed-methods to understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions.
Disseminate global public goods
to strengthen our mutual capacity for a science for action
Co-design strategies and metrics
through engagement with local, national, and regional stakeholders to promote policy reform and systems’ coherence
Guiding Principles
Our work is built on four core beliefs:
Context matters
Research must be grounded in local realities, languages, and cultures to be valid and useful.
Evidence must travel
We co-design, share, and adapt evidence so it can inform decisions across humanitarian, development, and education systems.
Equity is non-negotiable
We focus on children and communities systematically excluded from opportunity and representation.
Collaboration drives change
We learn with and from practitioners, policymakers, and affected communities—treating research as a shared, iterative process, not a one-way transfer of knowledge.
Focus Areas
Early Childhood (0-5 years)
We study and strengthen programs that nurture the foundational skills and relationships that support lifelong learning—especially for children in conflict and crisis.
Primary School-Aged Children (6-12 years)
We examine interventions that promote academic, social, and emotional growth during the transition to formal schooling, when inequalities often widen.
Measurement & Metrics
We develop and share high-quality tools and indicators that improve how the world measures children’s learning and wellbeing—helping partners use data to inform policy, improve practice, and scale impact sustainably.
Capacity-Strengthening and Policy Advising
We partner to translate research into practical policies that improve children’s learning and wellbeing at scale. We support early-career researchers to build local capacity and improve global scholarship on child development.
