Research & Development Area

Thinking of the future of education from within

At Belgrano Day School, the area of Research & Development is the institutional space through which the school assumes its most demanding responsibility: to anticipate what is coming and turn it into concrete present educational decisions.

It is not about following trends. It is about asking a genuine question about the future of education, even when that question becomes uncomfortable. At BDS, we call this Moonshot Mindset: the predisposition to honestly review our own practices, question inherited ideas and thoroughly explore new ways of teaching and learning, always maintaining a productive tension with the best of our traditions.

The R&D area is where that institutional attitude becomes a project, a methodology and concrete action.

A vision that guides our work

Today we welcome students in K1, who will graduate in 2043, in a world that will not be like it is nowadays and that will require knowledge, abilities and tools that we still don´t know. In the face of this reality, our school chooses not to limit itself to maintaining inherited models. It chooses to think ahead.

The R&D area operates from this conviction. It brings together pedagogy, technology and institutional innovation to explore areas beyond the traditional school model and develop authentic, and flexible learning experiences with a global outlook.

What we do

R&D´s work is separated into two complimentary tasks. Inside the area, we deepen the school´s educational model incorporating personalised and flexible learning strategies, such as the Virtual Learning Lab, the Dual Diploma, university credit programmes, blockchain certificates, and adaptive learning platforms such as Century.

Outside the area, we design educational frames that broaden BDS´s ecosystem.

We investigate emerging educational tendencies (microschools and alternative educational formats, AI agents, virtual education, and adaptative platforms) and we analyse them inside the framework of BDS’s educational project to transform them into concrete decisions.
We design and build prototypes of innovative learning models that prioritise students´ autonomy, the personalisation of paths, and the intelligent use of technology. Some of these models are integrated into the school’s everyday life. Others, open up possibilities around it.
We explore new forms of certification and accreditation (including technologies such as blockchain and university credit programmes) to give visibility and importance to those learning paths that traditional systems do not always recognise.
We build strategic alliances with schools, universities and innovative organisations at a national and international level, taking part in networks that enrich the school´s vision and allow it to learn alongside others.
We support and advise other educational institutions interested in transforming their educational models, sharing the knowledge, methodologies, and experiences of BDS.

Innovation with established roots

The R&D area was put forward by Dr. Alberto Taquini, Executive Director of the school, who, for over 25 years, maintained a pedagogical vision centred on learning and the construction of a student craftsman of knowledge. R&D is the institutional expression of that vision: not a laboratory separate from the school, but rather the space where BDS can ask questions, experiment, systematise ideas and plan for the future.

BDS is a school of over 100 years that dares to unlearn and relearn, not betraying its history, but honouring it. At BDS, innovating does not mean abandoning Fac Recte but asking, every time, how to live it in an everchanging world.

R&D´s Mission

To anticipate educational challenges in a constantly transforming world. From an international perspective, we bring together pedagogy, technology and institutional innovation to develop authentic, flexible and personalised learning experiences with a global outlook and rooted in the values that define Belgrano Day School.