Exploring Educational Ecosystems through the Lens of Intermediary Organizations: Insights for Policy and Practice

The UIC Center for Urban Education Leadership conducted a study in collaboration with the Qatar Foundation. As the research and work on educational ecosystems has grown, we now recognize a growing global trend that has positioned "intermediary organizations" in an oversized ecosystem role. Through their direct work with schools, especially the most vulnerable schools, these organizations straddle the larger ecosystem and the local schoolhouse, becoming conduits of external leadership resources into schools. With this in mind, we examined a set of more mature non-system intermediary organizations that work directly with schools to generate important insights about their work in forging relationships within and gaining vital resources from these expansive and diffuse ecosystems. Examining the ecosystem from the vantage point of these organizations generated important insights for helping non-system intermediary organizations to better consider and gain access to the kinds of ecosystem relationships and resources that are likely to prove important to their work, to schools, and to students. It also sheds light on broader issues relevant for ecosystem-building efforts. [This report was co-produced by the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Urban Education Leadership and WISE (World Innovation Summit of Education), an initiative of Qatar Foundation.]