Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Education (G.R.A.C.E)

Addressing the challenges and opportunities of Catholic Education Globally. Connecting researchers with practitioners, leaders and directors.

The University of Notre Dame Australia is a leading Australian centre for research in the area of Catholic education. Our researchers have expertise across the head, heart and hands of Catholic education, taking a multi-disciplinary approach that seeks to bring together academics with practitioners. We publish research in leading academic journals and book presses, supervise research Masters and PhD students, and we host events for collaboration at the national and international level.

Strengthening Catholic education in the current situation, and above all in a Post-Covid19 environment, requires a creative, integrative response, and a platform for encounter to engage with these tensions in new ways. Through the establishment of a Global Community of Practice (CoP), GRACE’s holistic approach seeks to foster a familial humanism among participants, emerging scholars and established academics. Such relationships help participants notice and respond to the presence of grace, fostering both personal and professional transformation. Participants bring their scholarship, practice and faith to bear on select themes and topics through round-table and virtual conversations, informal discourse, reflective discussions and research collaborations.

The G.R.A.C.E. Community of Practice is designed to influence three domains of the field of Catholic education:

• Cognitive: the theoretical and conceptual base of Catholic education;
• Affective: the formative qualities and experiences that shape the Catholic educator and scholar;
• Behavioral: the adoption of new understandings which influence the practice of being a Catholic educator and scholar in promoting social justice, while enhancing one’s capacity to foster a ‘culture of dialogue’ towards a global common good.

In these particular ways, GRACE hosts a ‘culture of encounter’ (Pope Francis) where people gather, learn from and grow with one another, contributing to the common good and living a sustainable manner.

The Community of Practice is for everyone interested in a new, integrated and revitalised approaches to Catholic education: teachers and leaders, clergy, researchers, established and emerging academics, and thought leaders. In the early stages of the project the focus is on the UK, Ireland, North America and Australia. In its second phase, the project will be actively seeking partners in the Global South.

Meet Our People

National Partners

International Partners

Externally Funded Projects

Mary Immaculate grant success!

Mary Immaculate College (MIC) has been awarded €950,000 to enable a new generation of Catholic educators at the College to connect with top-level experts in Catholic education in the USA, Australia and the UK. The funding has been awarded as part of the Global Researchers in Catholic Education (G.R.A.C.E) Project. funded by the Presentation Sisters in Ireland, the All Hallows Trust and the Irish Jesuit Province. The allocation of funding will allow MIC to award six scholarships to researchers in Catholic education, as well as five bursaries to postgraduate students studying on the MA in Christian Leadership in Education at MIC. A full-time three-year postdoctoral researcher position is also being offered as part of this project. Read more.

G.R.A.C.E at UNDA PhD Scholarship Recipient

Taylor Glass is the recipient of the Knights of the Southern Cross G.R.A.C.E PhD scholarship. The scholarship called for research into Catholic education. Taylor’s research how Giussani’s theological anthropology and philosophy of education might provide a constructive theology of human formation.

Recent Events

Mission and Identity in Catholic Education June 2025
The GRACE Colloquium at St Mary’s Twickenham, London brought together more than 150 international experts to discuss key themes in Catholic education, including vocation, leadership, spiritual development, and religious formation.

Head, Heart and Hands: Together in Faith January 2024
The inaugural GRACE Colloquium was held at The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle campus on the 17-19th January. Over 90 participants representing  6 countries participated in the community of practice sharing both research and practice within the themes of head, heart and hands. Read more.

African Outreach Webinar Series
In 2022, G.R.A.C.E worked with partners in Catholic Education in Africa to deliver a webinar series. In the midst of Covid, this opportunity provided a means to collaborate over the challenges and opportunities in Catholic education.

Pilgrimage to Rome
In 2022 participants from Ireland took a pilgrimage to Rome as part of a formative experience in engaging head, heart and hands in Catholic education. Once in Rome, the group were privileged with an audience with the Pope. Read the Pope's address.

International Lecture Series
Listen to webinars from around the world on a range of topics related to Catholic Education. Recorded lectures.

Upcoming

GRACE Colloquium 2026
Planned for June 2026 and being held at Boston College, USA.

Publications

Recent related publications by our partners.

• Coll, R. Hospitality to difference: LGBT, religious education and the Catholic school. j. relig. educ. 69, 25–36 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-020-00126-2.
• Conway, E., (2022). “Reorganising Irish Dioceses – to what purpose?” In Eugene Duffy (Ed), Restructuring Irish Dioceses, Dublin: Messenger Publications, 2022.
• Healy, C. & J. Lydon (2021) ‘Shepherding Talent: an informal formation programme for aspiring school leaders’, Chapter 13, In: G. Byrne & S. Whittle (eds.) Irish and British Reflections on Catholic Education (Singapore: Springer).
• O’Connell, D.; Harmon, M.; Meehan, A. (2023) ‘Will There Be Teachers? An Analysis of the Congruence of Religious Beliefs of Initial Teacher Education Students and the Patron’s (Religious Education) Programme for Catholic Schools’, Religions, 14, 1467. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14121467.
• Robinson C. (2023). But First, Spirituality: Spirituality and Religious Education in Western Australian Catholic Early Learning Contexts. Religions 14(2), 269. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020269.
• Robinson C, Cranley L, O’Connell D. (2023). The Journey to G.R.A.C.E: Creating an International Community of Practice. Religions 14(1), 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14010043.
• Robinson, C. & Fic, J. (2021). The T.I.T.U.S project: Implications of a spiritual and faith formation program on the teaching of classroom religious education. Journal of Beliefs and Values, https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2021.2012345.
• Robinson, C. (2020). To be ‘formed’ and ‘informed’: Early years’ educators perspectives of spirituality and its affordance in faith-based early learning centres. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality 25(3), 254-271.
• John Topliss & Nathan Leber (2023) An exploration of contemporary pastoral care practices used by teachers and leaders in Australian Catholic schools and their connection to Catholic identity, International Studies in Catholic Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/19422539.2023.2222506.

Contact us

For more information about GRACE, contact Sharon Law-Davis at sharon.law-davis1@nd.edu.au.