Building something horizontal, shared, and deeply practical
In 2017, at a coffee break during an IEA Governing Board meeting, four colleagues asked themselves a question. It was a simple, honest question: what are you doing in your country on the transition to digital assessment?
Thierry Rocher, Director of Evaluation at DEPP in the French Ministry of National Education, was one of those four colleagues. What happened next was not planned. But it was, perhaps, inevitable.
"What I said to myself, was that we could learn from each other, in a moment of real uncertainty, where so many questions were being asked about the transition to digital. We were used to meeting for international comparisons PISA, IEA and others. Extremely useful. But this collaboration was something different. This was cooperation. Horizontal cooperation. Peer learning."
FLIP+'s founding spirit was that very instinct to build something horizontal, shared, and deeply practical.
The person who built the house
Roberto Ricci came to that first conversation with a question and a need. Thierry came with something else: the conviction that someone had to build the structure that would allow the idea to live.
In 2018, DEPP organised the very first FLIP+ event in Paris with fewer than 30 people, a simple gathering of interested colleagues. In 2019, the FLIP+ Association was formally created under French law, with its headquarters in Paris, its founding members, treasury, its secretariat. All were carried in those early years, within the tight margins of the DEPP budget. In 2021, Thierry secured UNESCO funding to build the first FLIP+ Library prototype. When the Consortium was established, DEPP became the lead partner, accountable to all five funding institutions.
He did not do this alone. He is clear about that.
"I had the support of DEPP. My institution supported me throughout. That matters, and it should be emphasised."
But it started with personal conviction: a trajectory built over years of growing through international exchange, through a PhD in psychometrics, through seeing firsthand what peer learning can do for an institution and its teams.
"Everything I learned internationally was enormous. It was natural for me to take the lead on this, because I had seen it work."
What FLIP+ gives that nothing else can
Thierry has chaired the IEA, led AEA-Europe, and sits on the PISA Governing Board. He knows every major international structure in educational assessment. His answer to the question "what does FLIP+ offer that none of those can?" is precise.
"FLIP+ is a unique space for sharing professional practice. Different to international comparison, which serves another valuable purpose. This was rather for international cooperation. Not only academic but concrete and professional exchanges. It is very horizontal. Shared governance, collective decisions, close community collaboration. That makes FLIP+ something unique. There is no other place like it."
Why does FLIP+ exist?
"Because we grow better together. Because collective intelligence is perhaps the most powerful lever we have. If you believe that, and truly believe it, then FLIP+ makes complete sense. And if you don't, there is no point saying it.
Thierry Rocher has held FLIP+ from its very first moment. Not just as a participant, but as the person who gave it a home, a legal structure, and a future. The F in FLIP+ stands for France. It also stands for the belief that some things are worth building, even before you know exactly what they will become.
Thierry Rocher is Director of Evaluation at DEPP, Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, France, and a co-founder of the FLIP+ Association. DEPP is the Lead Partner of the FLIP+ Library Consortium.
