Ulrich Ludewig receives the ZIB Research Award

Dr. Ulrich Ludewig receives the 2026 Research Award from the Centre for International Student Assessment(ZIB). The award recognizes outstanding research on the analysis and interpretation of national and international large-scale assessment data. The award ceremony took place during this year’s GEBF conference at the Technical University of Munich.

The award was given for the article “Reading literacy decline in Europe: Disentangling school closures and out-of-school learning conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic” by Dr. Ulrich Ludewig, Dr. Rolf Strietholt, and Professor Nele McElvany, which was published last year in the journal Learning and Instruction.

For the study, data from the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) from 18 European countries and regions were analyzed. The aim was to investigate the extent to which school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic are linked to the decline in reading proficiency in Europe and what role other factors play.

The results show that a large part of the decline in proficiency can be attributed to school closures. At the same time, across Europe, about a quarter of the decline—and in Germany, as much as half—can be attributed to deteriorating out-of-school learning conditions.

We warmly congratulate Dr. Ulrich Ludewig on this special award and are delighted by the recognition of this important research!

For more information: Read the article