Figures in the higher education landscape was the main theme of the UNIKE Summer School in Porto, Portugal 29 June  – 3 July 2015. The five day PhD course included lectures, panel discussions and meetings with students to discuss their research proposals. This was the sixth event in the PhD training package for the EU Marie Curie Initial Training Network, Universities in the Knowledge Economy (UNIKE).

The UNIKE workshops are subdivided into three different elements: Scientific training, complimentary skills and Aspects of doctoral education.

The UNIKE Porto Summer School had the following focus:

1. Scientific training: Figures in the higher education landscape

2. Complementary skills: ‘Hands-on skills’ training on abstract writing, on the basis of abstracts the fellows had submitted in advance

3. Aspects of Doctoral Education: Governing narratives and doctoral education

The Summer School worked on analysing the transformations of the figure of the manager, academic, student and the university itself. The rationale was to question to what extent actors are actively involved in negotiating their roles and the meaning(s) higher education is assuming.

Speakers have been:

António M. Magalhães (University of Porto) and Amélia Veiga (CIPES), Gritt Nielsen (Aarhus University), Teresa Carvalho (University of Aveiro), Ulrich Teichler (University of Kassel), Rebecca Boden (University of Roehampton) and Davydd Greenwood (Cornell University),  Maarten Simons (KU Leuven), Corina Balaban (University of Aarhus), Tiago Neves (University of Porto)

Pictures of the Workshop