LINEup comprises two complementary lines of work:
- comprehensive secondary research aimed at collecting, analyzing, and summarizing existing national longitudinal data to enable assessment and identification of trends in longitudinal educational inequalities
- subsequent qualitative study to be conducted in the participating countries to collect primary data on the process of implementation and the impact of interventions focussing on students in school
The project comprises eight work packages distributed across the project partners, three of which structure the project over its entire duration. In addition to project management and coordination activities, these are in particular transfer and impact-generating activities that ensure the communication, dissemination, and utilization of research results. The research process is also accompanied by an ethics review.
In order to create the results for the transfer work and generation of impact, the central research process is divided into five interwoven work packages:
- A comprehensive literature review
- The mapping of existing, relevant longitudinal data
- The design of a qualitative research setup
- The creation of case studies
- The preparation and provision of research & policy recommendations
LIfBi acts as a “National Authority” for the project. With the NEPS as the largest long-term educational panel study in Germany and its experience and expertise in providing high-quality longitudinal data, LIfBi represents an elaborate system of data generation, its provision, and subsequent research in the European context, which also serves as a model (the “German case”).