Research in Post-Compulsory Education Editorial

This special issue is borne out of the first Reimagining Further Education conference that took place at Birmingham City University on 29 June 2016. A chance meeting between Matt O’Leary and Norman Crowther in November 2015 gave birth to the idea of this inaugural event in the back of a taxi on its way to New Street station in Birmingham! Lamenting the ongoing difficulties and challenges facing further education (FE) in England at the time and recognising the need for a forum in which practitioners and leaders could come together to debate and discuss these and collectively design positive ways forward for the sector, the decision was taken to organise the first ReimagineFE conference.The conference theme emerged from a desire to present a counter narrative to the parlous state of the sector at that time. Many leaders, managers and practitioners in FE providers were expressing alarm about what was going on and viewed the future with desperation. Buffeted by the ongoing reform in qualifications (with its corollary of a critical staffing shortage in some subjects – notably English and Maths), destabilised by the continuing debate about professional status as a consequence of the missed opportunity that was the Lingfield Report and above all pressurised by swingeing cuts to budgets as FE found itself bearing the brunt of the government’s austerity cuts in education, we felt it was an opportune time to bring people together from the sector to consider the current state of affairs and to imagine what FE could and should be.