On the May 20th Policy Futures director Katja Brøgger will give the keynote address at The Guild Lecture on Academic Freedom, titled: 'The New Geopolitics of Academic Freedom: European Higher Education and the (Re-)Politicisation of Science.'
This timely event brings together scholars, policymakers, and research leaders to explore how geopolitical tensions are reshaping the landscape of academic freedom in Europe and beyond. At the event scholars will examine growing political pressures on science and higher education—and the role of international collaboration, including the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), in defending open, autonomous knowledge systems.
The event is in-person and will be hosted in Brussels by The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities.
You can read more about the event and register here.
At the Policy Futures program, we are eagerly anticipating March 20th, when Policy Futures member Ester Zangrandi will defend her Ph.D. dissertation, Domopolitics in French Higher Education: (Re)Asserting the Nation-Home.
Focused on France, the dissertation investigates the extension and impact of new nationalist discourses as they become entangled with the long-running ‘neoliberalisation’ of higher education. Through the concept of domopolitics – the government of the nation-state as a ‘home’ (Walters, 2004), the thesis argues that neoliberal and new nationalist discourses interact in mutually reinforcing dynamics, steering higher education to serve the interests and morals of the nation-home.
The defense will take place at 1:00 PM at the Danish School of Education in Emdrup. A reception will follow the event.
Sign up for the event here: https://events.au.dk/phddefencevesterzangrandi
Join our online PhD course on academic freedom on May 27 and May 28, 2025!
This PhD course examines the political sphere's current entanglements with education and science. Focusing mainly on the European context, it explores the impact of political agendas on research and higher education, highlighting the new challenges that academic freedom faces within the current geopolitical landscape.
The course is aimed at all PhD students: both early and late-stage scholars, those interested in academic freedom as an important value and protection of their academic life, and those who study academic freedom as the subject of their research.
Policy Futures director Katja Brøgger will teach the course together with core international scholars within the field: Marta Bucholc, University of Warsaw, Peter Maasen, University of Oslo, Peto Andrea, Central European University, Vienna, Nelli Piattoeva, Tampere University, Andrew Ryder, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Venue: Online
Language: English
Register here: https://phdcourses.dk/Course/126861
The Policy Futures Program would like to congratulate Policy Futures associate member Manté Vertelyté on winning the KRAKA prize for 2023!
The KRAKA prize is awarded at the Kønskonference, a biennial conference by the Association for Gender Studies in Denmark. The purpose of the prize is to honor a student, researcher, or communicator who has contributed something innovative to Danish gender studies.
Manté Vertelyté has been awarded the prize for her article ‘Have we lost our sense of humour?!’ Affective senses of racial joking in Danish schools, published in the journal Social Identities.
On May 28th, the Danish language anthology Performative vendinger. Introduktion til nyere feministisk teori was published by the publishing house Nyt fra Samfundsvidenskaberne. The book is edited by Policy Futures member Dorthe Staunæs, Policy Futures director, Katja Brøgger, and Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen from Roskilde University.
The release of the anthology was celebrated at the Danish School of Education in Copenhagen on May 23rd. The launch was opened by Katja Brøgger, followed by short presentations by Dorthe Staunæs, Aarhus University, Ann Phoenix, UCL Institute of Education, Tobias Raun, Roskilde University, and Jin Hui Li, Aalborg University.
On May 23rd, Professor Susan Robertson from Cambridge University will host a hybrid workshop on the ‘politics of publishing’ in her capacity as honorary professor affiliated with the Policy Futures research program.
Susan has published well over a one hundred books and papers on education, the state, governance, and social justice and is editor-in-Chief of the journal Globalisation, Societies and Education. Her research focuses on the relationship between the state and education. Especially governance frameworks which determine the distribution of education opportunities and outcomes.
The workshop is open for PhDs and post-doctoral scholars at the Department of Education studies at the Danish School of Education, the Policy Futures research program, TRANSIT, CHET and other related research communities at the University of Tampere, Finland and University of Bristol, UK.
On May 23rd the release of the Danish language anthology Performative vendinger. Introduktion til nyere feministisk teori will be celebrated at the Danish School of Education in Copenhagen. The book is edited by Policy Futures member Dorthe Staunæs, Policy Futures director, Katja Brøgger, and Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen from Roskilde University and will be published on May 28th.
Performative vendinger compiles key texts from some of the most influential and intellectual feminist theorists and makes them accessible to Danish readers. Nineteen translated texts and seven introductory texts shed light on crucial, local, and global issues concerning matter, affect, body, inequality, racialization, queer, and the more-than-human, and demonstrate how recent feminist theory extends beyond gender by dealing with everything from humans and animals to medical technology, plantations, spirituality, toxic toys, economics, and the planet's condition.
Translated texts by Judith Butler, Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, Hortense Spillers, Sara Ahmed, Mel Y Chen, Jennifer Nash, Avtar Brah, Ann Phoenix, Jasbir Puar, Susan Stryker, Cáel M. Keegan, Fatima El-Tayeb, C. Riley Snorton, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Samantha Murray, Nina Lykke, Mette Bryld, Linda Birke, Donna Haraway, Felicity Amaya Schaeffer og Clare Hemmings.
Introductory texts by Mons Bissenbakker, Maria Strynø Bee-Christensen, Katja Brøgger, Camilla Bruun Eriksen, Iram Khawaja, Nazila Kivi, Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen, Nina Lykke, Michael Nebeling Pedersen, Tobias Raun og Dorthe Staunæs.
The event will be held in Danish. Register here: https://events.au.dk/bogreceptionperformativevendingerintroduktiontilnyerefeministiskteori/conference
There will be drinks, snacks, and the possibility to buy the book at the event. Read more about the book and pre-order at samfundslitteratur.dk.
14.00: Welcome by Associate Professor Katja Brøgger
14.05: Professor Dorthe Staunæs, Aarhus University
About performative turns, choice of texts, and translation.
14.20: Professor Ann Phoenix, UCL Institute of Education
About writing intersectional feminist theory.
14.30: Associate Professor Tobias Raun, Roskilde University
About introducing selected texts and finding the right words
14.40: Associate Professor Jin Hui Li, Aalborg University
About teaching in performative thinking
14.50-16.00: Reception og book sale
The conference represented a significant milestone in the efforts of the OPEN Action to address pressing issues surrounding the openness of European higher education and research in the face of rising nationalisms and geopolitical pressures. By bringing together leading scholars from 40 countries, the conference took collective steps towards converging diverse pan-European and interdisciplinary perspectives on the university in times of geopolitical uncertainty.
On April 16th, the OPEN COST Action annual conference in Aveiro, Portugal, was kicked off with a "peer-to-peer" research colloquium for early career scholars. Held annually, this colloquium supports the opportunity to share works-in-progress and engage in peer-to-peer feedback.
On April 17th, the OPEN COST Action management committee met for the second time. One of the many important topics discussed at the meeting was the grant opportunities that the OPEN COST Action will offer in the future.
On April 18th, OPEN COST Action chair Katja Brøgger and vice chair Hannah Moscovitz launched the main conference by presenting their vision for the future study of the geopolitics of higher education and research. Drawing on insights from their work with the Asserting the Nation project at Aarhus University, they centered academic freedom and institutional autonomy as a central area of study for this emerging discipline. Following the opening keynote, Thomas Ekman Jørgensen and Anna-Lena Claeys-Kulik from the European University Association introduced forecasts for the future of the university. Professor Ole Wæver from University of Copenhagen gave the last talk of the day, deepening the understanding of geopolitics and emphasizing the importance of superpower rivalry, global south post-colonial assertiveness and planetary threats.
On April 19th, the annual conference offered presentations by Professor Meng-Hsuan Chou from NTU Singapore with a keynote on the migration - higher education nexus. This was followed by the closing keynote by Professor Peter Maassen from University of Oslo highlighting the importance of close European collaboration on the monitoring of academic freedom.
For more information about the OPEN Action, please visit www.opencostaction.eu or follow @OPENcostACTION on X and “OPEN. EU COST Action CA22121” on LinkedIn.
We are pleased to announce the extension of appointments for three of our esteemed honorary professors until and including August 31, 2025. This decision reflects our commitment to excellence in education policy studies and our appreciation for the important contributions these professors have made to our program.
The following honorary professors will continue to enrich the Policy Futures Program with their expertise:
Nina Lykke, professor emerita, gender studies at Linköping University
Romuald Normand, professor of sociology, the University of Strasbourg
Susan Robertson, professor of education, the University of Cambridge
On International Womens Day, Friday the 5. of March, Policy Futures member Mie Plotnikof will participate in a panel debate about the ongoing efforts - both formalized and more subtle work being done - to undermine, silence and marginalize the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) agenda within higher education and research.
This includes political forces to cancel and shot down critical gender, race and migration study programs, as well as the more informal, but no less dangerous attempts to devalue and silence critical gender, race and migration scholarship in research networks and the publishing industry.
If you are interested in these matters, you can join this GOP (Open University) mini conference on Voice and Protest. A special panel has been added on Academic Resistances by members of the Gender, Work & Organization board.
The event will be held 11:00-12:30 UK time. Visit the Open University here for online access.
Panelists include Marianna Fotaki, Jeff Hearn, Emmanouela Mandalaki, Mie Plotnikof, Cinzia (Vincenza) Priola, Alison Pullen, Nela Smolović Jones, Melissa Tyler, and Alice Wickström.
In an article from the 24th of January, University World News covers the OPEN COST Action. The COST Action is chaired by Policy Futures researcher Katja Brøgger. Read the article here.
Among other things University World News writes that: "A 38-country interdisciplinary research project funded by Horizon Europe – coordinated by Aarhus University in Denmark – will examine how shifting geopolitics and the rise of new nationalisms restrictively influence freedom and openness in European higher education and research and suggest ways to address perceived threats. The large COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) action programme, officially known as “Rising nationalisms, shifting geopolitics and the future of European higher education/research openness” (OPEN), runs from 2023 to 2027 and aims to strengthen European scholarship."
In the autumn of 2020 Policy Futures researcher Mie Plotnikof, together with 15 other scholars from all Danish Universities, started collecting stories about sexism in Danish academia. This led to the development of the knowledge site www.SexismEDU.dk as well as the handbook “Sexism in Danish Higher Education and Research”, which is available for free download on the website: Get the book – sexismEDU. The handbook includes definitions, methods and tools for understanding, exploring and acting on sexism as individuals and collectives, as colleagues, scholars and managers / leaders in formal positions of power. The collective is also disseminating insights about sexism in their podcast series: Do you know sexism | Podcast on Spotify.
Now a Danish edition of the handbook bearing the title: SEXISME PÅ ARBEJDE, is finally available. The book launch will take place on the 1st of February 4pm-6.30pm at Ovnhallen, Porcelænshaven 24A, CBS, Copenhagen. You can read the full program and register here: Please join us in celebrating the launch of 4 new books: | Copenhagen Business School (nemtilmeld.dk).
You can also read the book ”SEXISME PÅ ARBEJDE” here: Sexisme på arbejde – Djøf Forlag (djoefforlag.dk)
CRITIQUE BEYOND CRITICISM: CRITIQUE AND CAREFUL EXPERIMENTATION is a new English language PhD-course at the Arts faculty at Aarhus University which aims to cultivate a careful ‘attitude experimental’ among the participants. The course will be taught in-person on May 6th, 2024, to May 8th, 2024, at Aarhus University’s Emdrup campus in Copenhagen.
The purpose of the course is to make PhD-students able to identify and formulate the possibilities, foundations and implications of critique. The participants will be able to distinguish various forms of critique to position their own approach in relation to various forms of critique and develop a careful experimental attitude.
The course will be taught by:
Professor Dorthe Staunæs, Aarhus University,
Professor Sverre Raffnsøe, Copenhagen Business School,
Senior lecturer Brigitte Bargetz, Kiel University,
Honorary Professor and Prof. Emirita Nina Lykke, Aarhus University and Linköping University,
Associate professor Malou Juelskjær, Aarhus University,
and Professor Erin Manning, Concorida University.
Read more about the course here.
On the 18th of January member of the policy futures research program Professor Dorthe Staunæs will be chairing an academic event hosted by the Nils Klim Committee at the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
The event is a seminar seeking to answer the question: How can local and historical knowledge contribute to rethinking current, planetary issues?
Four excellent young scholars from the Nordic countries, including three previous Nils Klim Laureates, are invited to reflect upon how the local knowledge they have encountered and the different geographical and historical spaces that they have conducted research within may inspire critical and ethico-politico approaches to tackle some of the great planetary problems we face in our time.
The four speakers will be associate Professor Frederik Poulsen from University of Copenhagen, Professor Elisa Uusimäki from University of Aarhus, Assistant Professor Aviâja Lyberth Hauptmann from Ilisimatusarfik, University of Greenland, Nuuk and Associate professor Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen from University of Aarhus. The seminar will conclude with a panel discussion involving all four speakers.
Read more about the event here.
From the 30th of October 2023, the Policy Futures Program Director, Katja Brøgger, takes up the post as Chair of the newly established EU COST ACTION, Rising nationalisms, shifting geopolitics and the future of European higher education and research openness (OPEN) with Aarhus University as the Grant Holder Institution. The Action will run from October 2023 until October 2027.
The Action includes 38 European COST member countries and cooperating countries. Together scholars of the Action will explore how the rise of new nationalisms and geopolitical tensions exert a growing pressure on the openness of European higher education and research and examine its implications for the future of Europe. By facilitating knowledge exchange and collaboration, the action will strengthen and showcase European scholarship, and liaise with stakeholders in the domain of higher education and research to generate ideas for addressing and alleviating the growing threats to the University’s openness and global cooperation capabilities.
The Action is based on four working groups that bring together inter-disciplinary researchers to explore the shifting dynamics between the University, the nation-state and the European integration project:
For further information, please see COST's website.
Stay posted for the upcoming launch of the Action's own website.
On the 27th and 28th of November, a conference on ‘Engaging with diversity work as atmospheric work – Performative experiments and careful critiques’ led by Dorthe Staunæs, Mantè Vertelytè, and Iram Khawaja will be held at Egitved Pakhus, Copenhagen.
Through experimental formats combining research, the arts, and forum theatre, the conference will offer two inspiring and stimulating days and an opportunity to engage with different ideas – both one’s own and those of others. It will be a forum for collective reflection on ways to transform and transgress the boundaries of knowledge production on diversity work as an atmospheric endeavour. Keynote speakers are Erin Manning and Nahum Nyinco Welang.
Antti Saari (Tampere University), Nelli Piattoeva (Tampere University), Radhika Gorur (Deakin University), and Katja Brøgger (University of Aarhus) invite paper submissions for an Educational Philosophy and Theory Special Issue on “Critical Times? Conditions, Constraints, and Cooptions in Contemporary Educational Critique.”
The Issue will cover theoretical and empirical notions of critique and what it means to be critical while interrogating the diverse conditions, constraints and cooptions of critique in contemporary education.
The call welcomes texts that can address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
Abstracts should be submitted to Antti Saari (ant.saari@tuni.fi) no later than November 1st. 2023.
Read more about the special issue, deadlines, and how to submit papers.
On the 27th of September 2023, the Policy Futures research program and the Affective investments in diversity work in STEM at Danish universities research project will host a talk by Michalinos Zembylas.
The talk titled Affective imaginaries in higher education will touch upon the Professor’s work including research on emotion and affect in relation to social justice pedagogies, intercultural and peace education, human rights education and citizenship education. The event invites all Policy Futures program members as well as the Ethnicity, Diversity and Education research unit at DPU for participation.
Michalinos is a Professor at the Open University of Cyprus and Honorary Professor and Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University. Among his publications are the books Critical Human Rights Education: Advancing Social-Justice-Oriented Educational Praxes (with A. Keet), and Socially Just Pedagogies in Higher Education (co-edited with V. Bozalek, R. Braidotti, and T. Shefer).
On the 30th of May to June 1st, the Arts Diversity Lab led by Dorthe Staunæs, Marie Vejrup and Lone Koefoed will be hosted at DPU, Aarhus University. The three-day event holds several writing sessions, and Pat Thomson will lead a session on “Insights from Abstracts & Fostering Creative Writing” on the first day. The lab will also include evening talks and discussions. On the first evening, Britta Tim Knudsen will give a talk on her project "Playing with Ghosts". The second evening will be framed by Tobias Skiveren's talk, "Environmental Literacy in L1 Education: Greening Danish Literary History."
For further information or to sign-up for the event, please contact Malvina Schirmer at masc@edu.au.dk.
Registration deadline: May 9th, 2023
The Policy Futures program director, Katja Brøgger, has been selected as Visiting Senior Fellow for the academic year 2023-2024 at the Faculty of Education and Culture (EDU) at Tampere University, Finland.
As commencement to a long-term partnership between the research centre TRANSIT and the Policy Futures Research Program, the Visiting Senior Fellow programme includes collaborative workshops and research activities, such as, an international TRANSIT workshop, “Methodologies of research on nationalism in education: critical and interdisciplinary perspectives” as part of the ongoing “Collaboratory of nationalism in education”, and a public seminar and workshop “Slow science and academic freedom” further involving researchers from the Centre for Social Sciences (Budapest, Hungary).
For additional information about the workshops, seminars, consultation opportunities for young researchers, and other questions, please check Tampere University’s webpage.
Two Associate Professors from the Policy Futures research program have been admitted into the Program for promotion to professor at the Faculty of Arts at Aarhus University, Policy Futures program director, Katja Brøgger and Søren Smedegaard Bengtsen.
Admitting Katja Brøgger and Søren Smedegaard Bengtsen into the program testifies to an important strengthening of the research into higher education at Danish School of Education.
On the 18th of January, Sciences Po Aix, the Mesopolhis, Centre Méditerranéen de Sociologie, de Science Politique & d’Histoire, hosted a workshop on Universities in Times of Crisis bringing international scholars from Denmark and France to present and discuss their studies on the transformations in the higher education sector in Europe. Among the discussed transformations were new managerial schemes, privatization of the sector, protectionist and neo-nationalist tendencies, the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and the Russian war in Ukraine.
The workshop was organized by Policy Futures program director and Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Katja Brøgger, and Professor in political sciences from Sciences Po Aix, Dorota Dakowska. The seminar included presentations by the organizers, Corine Eyraud (Aix-Marseille Université), Ester Zangrandi (Aarhus University), Hicham Jamid (Institut de Reserche pour le Développement), Rasmus Harsbo (Aarhus University), Hannah Moscovitz (Aarhus University), Théotime Chabre (Sciences Po Aix, IC Migrations) and Olga Gille-Belova (Université Bourdeaux Montaigne).
The workshop was finalized with a roundtable discussion on Ukrainian academics in wartime, in which Oksana chepelyk (Modern Art Research Institute of NAAU, AMU), Olga Gold (Universi of Odessa, AMU), Oksana Shostak (National Aviation University, Kyiv, AMU), Iryna Sikorska (Mariupol State University), and Dorota Dakowska (Sciences Po Aix) participated.
The seminar and following workshop at Sciences Po Aix was part of the 'Asserting the Nation' project led by Katja Brøgger.
On the 26th of October, the Centre for Education Policy Research from Aalborg University together with the Aarhus University Policy Futures program will host a public seminar on Antiracist education – reforming public education through perspectives from below. The event will be initiated by Professor George J. Sefa Dei from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education with a keynote presentation on “Anti-racism education as decolonial and anti-colonial practice”. With the purpose of acknowledging the importance of anti-racism and contributing to theoretical and practical tools for thinking beyond Equity, Diversity and Inclusion [EDI] models from an anti-colonial lens, the presentation addresses discursive links between race, indigeneity, decolonization and anti-racist education. The lecture further discusses possible ways to develop research and scholarship for decolonial and anti-colonial framings of anti-racism, how institutions can support this work and the required future steps as “Way Forward”. Professor Sefa Dei’s keynote will be followed by seven contributing presentations by Jin Hui Li, Gro Hellesdatter, Manté Vertelyté, Tine Brøndum, Iram Khawaja, Dorthe Staunæs, and Mira Chandhok Skadegård.
Program
10.00-11.00 | Keynote by Professor George J. Sefa Dei |
11.00-11.30 | Break |
11.30-12.30 | Panel 1: Jin Hui Li and Gro Hellesdatter Jacobsen |
12.30-13.30 | Lunch |
13.30-15.00 | Panel 2: Manté Vertelyté, Tine Brøndum, and Iram Khawaja |
15.00-15.30 | Break |
15.30-16.30 | Panel 3: Dorthe Staunæs and Mira Chandhok Skadegård |
To sign up for the seminar, please contact Research Assistant, Hatice Filikci at haticef@ikl.aau.dk
On the 8th of November, the Policy Future Program is hosting the launch of the recently published Springer book Governing by Numbers and Human Capital in Education Policy Beyond Neoliberalism. Social Democratic Governance Practices in Public Higher Education, authored by Miriam Madsen and published in the Educational Governance Research book series (volume 19).
The book addresses governing by numbers and human capital policy in higher education by asking how higher education is quantified, how the quantitative information is used in educational governance, and how the information is perceived by students, teachers, managers, and policymakers, and affects decision-making. It also thematically discusses how human capital theory affects the quantification practices and, thereby, their effects. Based on these analyses, the book asks whether governing by numbers and human capital in education policy are necessarily neoliberal practices, and thus questions the theory of global convergence in educational governance.
The launch will be chaired by John B. Krejsler and include a presentation by the book author Miriam Madsen and editor of the Educational Governance Research book series, Lejf Moos.
On September 15, the Policy Futures program hosted a seminar for the local 25 members at Danish School of Education. The seminar included an introduction by the program director, Katja Brøgger and inspiring presentations by associate professor Gritt Nielsen, associate professor Lise Degn and assistant professor Miriam Madsen on their respective projects. The presentations sparked lively discussions on diversity, how categories come into being, the performative effects of budgets and numbers, research integrity and much more. The event was chaired by the program director in collaboration with early careers scholars, Manté Vertelyté and Hannah Moscovitz.
In connection to the project, Affective investments in diversity work in STEM at Danish universities, Policy Futures is launching a trans-continental lab on affects, diversity, and higher education. The lab is designed by program member, Dorthe Staunæs and hosted by her and another program member, Manté Vertelyté. The lab gathers 10 international researchers. With the goal of sharing, comparing, and learning about the diversity work carried out by humans and educational organization across different academic contexts and ‘diversity histories', the lab functions through online spaces, allowing researchers to work together from the distinct locations they are situated in. Based on a variety of data, the lab aims at considering the findings through theories and concepts of new materialism, posthumanism, poststructuralism and different strands of ‘the affective turn’.
To read more about the lab, check out the Affective investments in diversity work in STEM
The Danish Ministry of Children and Education has recently set up an expert group to consult on how the influence and significance of gender can be reduced in both day care, primary and lower secondary education and in upper secondary education. The group will be responsible for investigating possible reasons for the gender differences among children and youth’s results in school education. The Policy Futures member Dorthe Staunæs has been appointed as one of the contributing experts of the project.
Read more about it at the Ministry for Children and Education’s website.
June 8-10, 2022, the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University offers a PhD course on the "New Geopolitics of Higher Education". The course will explore the current geopolitical landscape, a conflicting EU, new nationalisms, and the paradoxes and contradictions around state power, nationalism, and higher education. Lecturers: Katja Brøgger (coordinator), Gerard Delanty, Marijk Van der Wende, Jo Dillabough, Ramona Coman and Hannah Moscovitz. The course is especially targeted for students of nationalism, European integration, geopolitics, and higher education, and it can be attended both online and in person.
For additional information and application click here.
For further information/questions, please send an e-mail to Katja Brøgger and Hannah Moscovitz.
Starting from the spring semester of 2022, the Policy Futures research program will facilitate Brown Bag seminars for the program's Phd Students, Postdocs, Assistant Professors, students, and research assistants. To support and encourage talent development, the seminars function as a platform for collaborative exchange and discussion. These exchanges can range from already developed papers to work-in-progress presentations as well as dialogues in relation to specific theoretical, methodological, or empirical questions.
The seminars will be held online, twice a month, during lunch time, guaranteeing the participation of as many scholars involved as possible.
The Policy Futures member, Miriam Madsen, has recently received funding from the joint committee for Nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, under the grant NOS-HS Explanatory Worshop, for a network with three workshops addressing Governing Education Pasts, Presents, and Futures with Data. The network is organized in collaboration with Berit Karseth from Oslo University, Nelli Piattoeva from Tampere University, and Ida Cheyenne Martinez Lunde from Oslo University. It will be running from January 2022, to June 2024. The first workshop will be held in Copenhagen, in February of 2022; the second one in Oslo, in August of 2022; and the third in Tampere, in February of 2023.
About the workshops:
Data practices of progression measurement, projection, prediction, risk assessment, policymaking, management, and memory crafting play a growing role in the governance of public education, especially in the Nordic countries. The workshop series will explore how these data practices create specific relations between the past, the present, and the future. To this end, the workshops bring together the latest theoretical developments, international scholars, both young and experienced Nordic researchers, and examples of data practices from the Nordic countries.
The research project, Asserting the Nation, explores how neo-nationalism has affected national and European higher education policy. The project centers on universities and compares how neo-nationalism has affected higher education policy in Poland, France, UK and Denmark.
Read more about Asserting the Nation.
The project is being launched with two introductory webinars. The first, on the 29th of October, 2021, and the second, on the 10th of November, 2021. For information on the webinars, check the events calendar to the left.
On the 29th of September, the Centre for Education Policy Research (CfU) at Aalborg University hosted an international seminar in collaboration with the Policy Futures research program. The seminar was organized and led by Director and Associate Professor, Katja Brøgger, Policy Futures research program, DPU, Aarhus University and Professor Mette Buchardt, Centre for Education Policy Research, Aalborg University.
Research program Director and Associate Professor, Katja Brøgger, received a Sapere Aude Research Leadership grant and an Inge Lehmann grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark to conduct a large-scale international research project on the rise neo-nationalism in higher education. Policy Futures member and Associate Professor, Søren Smedegaard Bengtsen, received the Sapere Aude Research Leadership grant to study how the cohesion between doctoral education societal impact and value may be increased.
Learn more about the projects here: https://dff.dk/en/grants/copy_of_research-leaders-2020?set_language=en
We are happy to announce that Professor of Education Susan Robertson at Cambridge University and Professor of Sociology, Romuald Nordmand from Strasbourg University have been conferred the title of honorary professors of Policy Futures for the period 1 September 2020.
Together with Oxfam Ibis, the Policy Futures PRIVATOPIA Network hosted this event on January 22. with Dr. Prachi Sristava from University of Western Ontario, one of the leading experts on commercialization of education and low-fee private schooling: Global Trends in Education: Commercialization – Why should we care?
The event was a great success – a packed room with students, researchers and political activists interested in education, development and the politics around the private and the public sector. Many thanks to Lucas Cone and Oxfam Ibis for organizing this.
This week Danish School of Education's research program "Policy Futures" teamed up with Centre for Education Policy Research at Aalborg University for the seminar titled: "Education Politics between the transnational and re-nationalizing pressures ". Jana Bacevic (University of Cambridge) and Bob Lingard (University of Queensland) participated as guest lecturers.
Danish School of Education's (DPU) research programme 'Policy Futures' at Aarhus University and Aalborg University's Center for Education Policy Research (directed by Professor Mette Buchardt) shares the distinct feature of engaging with education policy studies. In late September, they joined forces on a 2-day collaborative seminar. This seminar aimed at strengthening cross-institutional collaboration and sharing of knowledge and new trends within the field.
The seminar centered around themes such as "Transnational institutions and identity politics", "Repositioning educational responsibilities", "Breaking or (re-)making the (trans-)national?", "Pedagogy and reforms between national and universalist narratives", and "Data, numbers, and measurements". The seminar took place at DPU's location in Copenhagen. With another planned seminar in the spring in Aalborg, the two research groups expand horizons, achieve valuable insights into the work of colleagues, and receive appreciated feedback on ongoing projects. The joint initiatives on collaborative seminars promises well for a future successful partnership and not least for future examinations of education policy.
The research program Policy Futures hosted a public lecture by Bob Lingard (Emeritus Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University) on Digital Learning Assessments in Education: A Critical Analysis
The presentation addressed the growing roles of big data and digital learning assessments in education in the context of the impact of digital disruption and changing social arrangements. This phenomenon has been characterised variously as the audit culture, knowing capitalism, data capitalism, the metric society and surveillance capitalism.
Lingard addressed the following questions: What is the nature of digital learning assessments and how do they evolve in complex and nonlinear ways from computer-based testing through Computer Adaptive Testing to Immersive Assessments? And, what are the relationships to big data, in terms of volume, continuous collection and interaction?
Brøgger, K. (2023). Post-Cold War Governance Arrangements in Europe: The University between European Integration and Rising Nationalisms.
Krejsler, J. B (2023). The Nordic Dimension as a Metaspace for Educational Research.
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Keynotes: Andrea Petö and Marta Bucholc
April 25th 2023
Keynote: Thierry Luescher
March 16th 2023
Keynotes: Donatella della Porta and Manja Klemenčič
November 17th 2022
Keynote: Sotiria Grek
May 11th 2022
Keynote: Ben Williamson
April 28th 2022
Keynote: Tom Popkewitz
March 10th 2022
Keynote: Sam Sellar
February 24 2022
Keynote: Ezekiel Jr. Dixon-Roman
November 26 2021
Keynote: Katja Brøgger, Hannah Moscovitz, Marijk van der Wende, Elizabeth Balbachevsky, Pundy Pillay, Meng-Hsuan Chou, and Vincent Carpentier
November 10th 2021
Keynote: Gregory Jusdanis, Eirikur Bergmann and Florian Bieber
October 29 2021
Keynote: Gita Steiner-Khamsi
May 28 2021
Keynote: Ann Phoenix, Dorthe Staunæs, John Krejsler and Nina Lykke
March 19, 2021
Keynote: Paolo Landri and Emiliano Grimaldi
December 03 2020
