Research in the field of ‘neuroscience and education’ aims to provide educationally relevant, and empirical evidence using the increasingly more integrated methods of neuroscience, psychology and education. It is important that studies in the field consider the needs of all disciplines and are open to cross-disciplinary communication. All three disciplines can inform each other in introducing methods, integrating potentially diverse research results and theoretical views, and setting research agendas. The diversity of the field in ideas, approaches, methods and theoretical views is key. Debate-free, uniform opinion rarely leads to scientific progress. The current special issue addresses current advances and controversies in some of the major topics in the field of educational neuroscience, i.e., the neuroscience of processes important for education, from science, technology, education and mathematics (STEM) and reading, domain general processes, cognitive training, motivational, affective and social processes, and neurodevelopment.