The Policy Futures research program hosted an international online webinar on the complex relation between the academic self and expert knowledge/the role as expert. Our French colleague, Romuald Normand (Strasbourg University) gave an insightful keynote on the topic: “Following European experts as an embedded researcher. Multiple commitments, contingencies, and asymmetries shaping the academic self”. Two respondents, Professor Dorota Dakowska (Université Lumière Lyon 2) and Associate professor Nelli Piattoeva (Tampere University) provided elaborate and contextualizing comments on the presentation. Colleagues from European countries such as France, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Italy, the UK and Denmark joined the webinar. Many thanks to the keynote, the respondents and the audience for a stimulating afternoon.
Romuald Normand, Professor at the University of Strasbourg and honorary professor of the Policy Futures research program. His main research topics are comparative education and policy studies. Romuald has researched topics relating to metrics and accountability systems in education, academic work, and expertise. He occupies several important posts. Besides his professorship at Strasbourg, he is Head of the Chinese-French Centre for Innovation in Education and Associate Professor at Beijing Normal University, China.
Dorota Dakowska, Professor in Political science at Lyon University and partner in the DPU-based international comparative research project ‘Asserting the Nation: Comparative Studies on the Rise of Neo-nationalism in Higher Education’ led by PI Katja Brøgger. Dorota does research in Higher Education Reforms, Higher education policy in the European Union, Political Organizations and Parties, and Comparative Democratization. She is Deputy Director of the Political science doctorate at the University of Lyon and President of the Scientific Council of the Centre Marc Bloch, French-German Research Centre in Berlin and elected Board member of the French Political Science Association.
Nelli Piattoeva, Associate Professor at the New Social Research Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University. Nelli examines education as a means of governance. Especially her research agenda addresses the intertwined processes of transnationalisation and datafication of education policymaking. In particular, she has taken an interest in how the production and use of national and international large-scale assessments of learning outcomes act as technologies of education governance at a distance.
