As the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) launches an online exhibition to celebrate 70 years of continuous publication of the International Review of Education (IRE), editor Paul Stanistreet considers the significance of the anniversary and explains how UIL plans to mark it

Fifty years ago this month, in March 1955, the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) published the first issue of a new journal, the International Review of Education.

Founded in Hamburg in 1952, UIE, under the directorship of Walther Merck, Professor of Comparative Education at the University of Hamburg, was mandated to “establish contacts between educators in Germany and other countries … without prejudice arising from national, racial or cultural differences” and “to participate in the work of UNESCO … to maintain peace in the world and to carry out educational programmes for international understanding”.