The title and theme for the SIG-24 meeting in Aarhus is ‘(Post-)Doctoral pedagogy and research culture’ and explores and discusses how pedagogical and ethical notions of trust, care, belonging, wellbeing, meaning-making, community spirit, solidarity, and hope are all vital, yet often unarticulated and sometimes unrecognized, elements of doctoral education, post-doctoral and researcher education and research culture more widely.
Today, many students arrive into doctoral education from other countries, disciplines, and institutional, social and cultural contexts. Similarly, many post-PhD careers, whether within or beyond the university, also happens through border- and boundary-crossing and bring academics into new disciplines, sectors in professional domains, organisations and companies outside the university context, and often, again, into new national and cultural contexts.
While the transitions in knowledge and research are vital to these PhD and post-PhD trajectories, so is the existential, emotional, and social dimensions of wellbeing, meaning-making, and formation (Bildung). While these elements too often have been left to the individual researcher to tackle and cope with, we now engage head-on with values and practices of care, ethics, existential meaning-making, and personal and social formation during the PhD and in post-PhD careers.
We ask: What are the responsibilities of doctoral and post-doctoral supervisors and advisors, research leaders and Graduate School directors in ensuring meaningful, grounded, and formative trajectories of learning, knowing, and being? What are the core values that are, and should be, defining for research environments and research cultures? How do (these) values become enacted by formal and informal supporters, mentors, and leaders in research education, and who are responsible for ensuring a sustainable, creative, and joyful research culture?
Our aim and goal for the SIG-meeting is to pave new way into these under-researched dimensions of (post)doctoral education and careers. We aim to start up a series of research papers on the topic while in Aarhus, and to make concrete plans and firm agreements for how to complete them followingly. If there is interest and support, we will try to lead a special issue on the topic as part of a research journal (still to be decided).
Programme
A detailed programme will be announced a little later in the Spring, when we have all the details ready. For now, and in order for you to plan your travel and participation, the following times have been fixed. As you will see, the SIG-24 meeting officially starts on August 26 at 2.00pm and officially ends on August 28, at 2.00pm, with an optional writing retreat in the afternoon.
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
1.00-2.00pm: Registration opens
2.00-4.30pm: Official opening of the SIG-meeting, introduction to the meeting theme, presentation of programme, and collaborative workshops
4.30-5.00pm: Break
5.00-6.30pm: Informal reception hosted by the SIG-24 and CHEF
Thursday, August 27, 2026
09.00-09.30am: Informal mingling, tea and coffee
09.30-12.00pm: Scene setting, preparation for collaborative workshops
12.00-1.00pm: Lunch
1.00-3.00pm: Collaborative workshops
3.00-3.30pm: Break
3.30-5.30pm: Collaborative workshops
5.30-7.00pm: Free time
7.00-22.00pm: SIG-24 dinner
Friday, August 28, 2026
09.00-09.30am: Informal mingling, tea and coffee
09.30-1.00pm: Groups report back and plenary discussion of next steps
1.00-2.00pm: Lunch and official closing of the SIG-24-meeting
2.00-5.00pm: Optional facilitated writing retreat
5.00-7.00pm: Free time
7.00-22.00pm: Optional informal dinner somewhere in Aarhus city centre
All times are given in local Danish time, which follows Central European Summer Time (CEST), and which is UTC+2.
Read more here