About the CEIEC

The Centre for and Innovation in Early Childhood (CEIEC) was established in 2001 under the leadership of Professor Glenda Mac Naughton as a specialised early childhood research and teaching centre within the Department of Learning and Educational Development at the University of Melbourne. It is now located within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.

The CEIEC was the first centre of its kind internationally committed specifically to working for equitable change in early childhood education. The CEIEC's mission is to champion children's rights and social justice in and through research, policy development, consultation and advice, and training in services for young children and their families.

The CEIEC gives meaning and substance to its vision in five ways.

Advocacy and policy advice

• championing equity and innovation in services for young children and their families
• providing policy advice, briefing papers and position statements to policy makers and early childhood professionals.

• actively pursuing collaborative partnerships with professionals, communities, policy makers, and governments that facilitate relevant and innovative education for equity, social justice and children's rights in early childhood education
• building international networks of researchers and trainers who share its concerns and interests.

• producing, monitoring, coordinating and disseminating research to the early childhood field and other relevant professionals in ways that inspire commitment to excellence and quality improvement for equity
• establishing a range of fora, including an e-community, dedicated to information dissemination, critique and exchange.

• offering leading edge professional development programs that support excellence in equity, social justice and childrens rights in early childhood for children, practitioners and the wider community
• tailoring professional development programs to respond to the specific requirements of early childhood practitioners, early childhood organisations, or to changes in the wider context of early childhood education.

Undergraduate and postgraduate teaching

• inviting and sustaining ongoing undergraduate, and postgraduate research into equity, innovation, and childrens rights in early childhood education.

CEIEC team members are recognised nationally and internationally for their outstanding and distinctive scholarship and advocacy on social justice, equity and children's rights in early childhood. Their expertise provides research participants and clients with access to a unique and distinctive range of analytical expertise, professional development services, and applied research capabilities built through their extensive experience not only as researchers but also as trainers, senior policy advisers, practitioners, and service managers.