Anke Grotlüschen
Hall of Fame Class of 2023
Dr. Anke Grotlüschen is a widely cited and internationally recognized researcher known for her scholarship on adult education and literacy. Her trailblazing research on literacy is respected among policymakers and researchers alike with findings that contradict common stereotypes about how low-literate adults function in society.
Grotlüschen earned a bachelor’s degree in 1991 in Economics, focusing on foreign commerce and financial services, a master’s degree in 1997 in Educational Sciences, Political Sciences, Psychology and Sociology, and a Ph.D. in e-learning in 2003.
Her work as Professor for Lifelong Learning at Hamburg University occupies a unique intersection between practice and pure research. Her primary goal has been to provide the evidence for more funding and institutionalization of more than 25 basic education centers within Germany, while focusing on the areas of greatest need. In all of her work, she has focused on the ways that adult education can be emancipatory and not exclusively centered on improving work opportunities.
She manages a large team dedicated to research on adult literacy, overseeing research grants of over 4 million euros, focusing on assessment, literacy and lifelong learning. Her teams interpret data from a socio-materialist standpoint, pointing to social injustice and needs for adult education opportunities. Findings from her team led to the establishment of a National Literacy Strategy (2011-2015) and an ongoing Literacy Decade (2016-2026) in Germany, with its focus on digital, financial, health and civic education.
As an international authority in adult literacy and international assessments, she has worked closely with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Educational Testing Serving (ETS) on the development and analysis of survey instruments. She worked with both of these international groups to analyze the Programme on International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey instrument.
Grotlüschen has published over 150 chapters, peer-reviewed articles, edited volumes and monographs. In recognition of this work, she has received two prestigious awards for her advocacy and transfer – the Award for Public Understanding of Sciences and the Humanities’ (PUSH) (2007) and the Literacy Ambassador (2015) by Bundesverband for Alphabetisierung und Grundbildung.
She is member of the scientific board of the Section for Adult Education of the German Association for Educational Research (GERA) and is the chair of The Hamburg Numeracy Project, a common research project with six principal investigators and 10 research associates from UNESCO-Institute for Lifelong Learning, University of the Armed Forces, University of Applied Sciences and Hamburg University.