The Institute

The Bavarian Staatsinstitut für Frühpädagogik und Medienkompetenz (State Institute for Early Childhood Research and Media Literacy (IFP)), Germany, is a research centre focusing on innovative projects in early childhood education, research into early learning and knowledge transfer for practitioners and policy-makers. The IFP has strong ties to other research institutes and specialist institutions at national, European and international levels. The main goals of the IFP are

• to conduct basic and applied research in the fields of developmental psychology and pedagogy, with a focus on centre-based early childhood education and care,
• to develop, evaluate and disseminate innovatory approaches in early childhood education and special needs education,
• to develop strategies for promoting co-operation between daycare centres, families, schools and other facilities and
• to develop and evaluate strategies for improving the initial training and continuing professional development of early childhood educators.