Organising Continuity and Quality of the European Educational Research Association.

Research associations tend to be voluntary by nature and therefore unstable in character, and thus are subject to threat for their continuity. History has shown that the European Educational Research Association (EERA) is not an exception to this rule. Because EERA Council and the board members are volunteers with limited time, experience and expertise in running a complex international organisation, they cannot be expected to manage EERA without professional support. In this article the authors describe the ways in which EERA has tried to guarantee continuity through rearranging its administrative and financial structures. They show that introducing a business model for organising conferences, which both spreads the financial risks and provides the organisation with sufficient resources to maintain a professional office supporting not only the conference organisation but also all other EERA activities, has contributed immensely to the stability of EERA. The office is the collective memory of EERA in terms of both people and documents. Of course, this has introduced a new dependency: EERA’s continuity and viability is nearly as vulnerable as its office is. The modern conference resembles the pilgrimage of medieval Christendom in that it allows the participants to indulge themselves in all the pleasures and diversions of travel while appearing to be austerely bent on self-improvement. To be sure, there are certain penitential exercises to be performed – the presentation of a paper, perhaps, and certainly listening to the papers of others. (Lodge, 2011, p. xi.)