The Patrick Griffin Prize in Education
Launch at the AERC Annual Lecture · 17 February 2027
The Assessment & Evaluation Research Centre (AERC, previous ARC) is proud to announce the establishment of the Patrick Griffin Prize in Education, a new annual award honouring the extraordinary legacy of one of Australia's most distinguished educational researchers.
Professor Patrick Griffin held the Chair of Education (Assessment) at the University of Melbourne and served as the founding Director of the Assessment Research Centre (ARC) for more than 25 years, the centre that has since evolved into AERC. His research on item response modelling and performance assessment, always with a formative orientation, shaped generations of scholars and practitioners across Australia and internationally. One of only six Australian Fellows of the International Academy of Education, Professor Griffin devoted his career to understanding how assessment can serve learning and to ensuring that such understanding reaches classrooms, systems, and communities around the world.
The prize will be awarded annually to a graduate researcher at the Faculty of Education whose thesis is judged to be the most outstanding of the year, at doctoral or research master's level, recognising excellence in educational research and inspiring the next generation of scholars who carry on Professor Griffin's commitment to research that matters.
The inaugural prize will be launched at the AERC Annual Lecture on 17 February 2027. The award will be formally introduced on the day by Professor Griffin's wife, Lynn Griffin, who will speak to his life, work, and the values this prize is established to honour.
Nominations are open to students across the entire Faculty of Education who have submitted and passed a research thesis during the preceding calendar year. Supervisors, thesis examiners, and academic staff are warmly invited to nominate. Further information on the nomination process will be published ahead of the first award round, 17th February, and the first award winner will be announced in May - June 2027.
For enquiries, please contact the AERC, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne, at AERC-info@unimelb.edu.au.
Those who wish to support the ongoing impact of the Patrick Griffin Prize in Education are also invited to make a donation. Contributions of any size are welcome and will help sustain the prize and continue Professor Griffin's legacy of advancing educational research. Donations can be made through the University of Melbourne's giving page: https://giving.unimelb.edu.au/the-patrick-griffin-prize.