The Contribution of Iea to Research and Education

I want to thank the organizers of this conference for their kind invitation to me to present what I consider the important contributions that IEA has made to both research and education over the years. I have been a part of IEA and IEA has been a part of my and my family’s life for over forty years now. It has been an exciting ride, to say the least. Despite my continuous connection with IEA over this period, trying to identify its contributions is no easy task. The reason for this difficulty stems from the fact that isolating the contribution of a specific activity or organization to some larger social structure such as education is risky. One is not sure how much to ascribe to the specific activity and how much to other factors in a society. What I am offering here are my best guesses as to what IEA has contributed to research and education. It is not inconsiderable, I believe, and I shall try to demonstrate this in this paper.