In the spring of 2017, the Swedish Research Council made a call for the organization of national graduate schools within four priority educational science areas. In the field of digital technologies in education, six universities – the University of Gothenburg, the University of Gävle, the University West, the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Mid Sweden University, and Umeå University – together wrote an application granted by the Swedish Research Council in the autumn of 2018. Today GRADE constitutes a complementary network organization for postgraduate education at the partner educational institutions and subject areas. Through a clear collaboration with the aim of providing support and structure for the doctoral students’ projects, GRADE coordinates its course offering, conducts higher seminar activities and provides workshops. The HEIs that are part of GRADE collaborate to provide courses that utilize their common expertise in areas such as research methods, research ethics, theoretical perspectives, analytical tools, and design issues. The HEIs also cooperate with regard to supervision of doctoral students and other activities.
A basic starting point for GRADE is an interdisciplinary approach. Didactics, Informatics, Education, Educational Work, Technology and Learning / Media Technology and Applied IT are the subject areas that are represented in the graduate school and which all contribute with different perspectives in research directed at the digitalization of schools. An ambition is also that the knowledge that stems from the activities of GRADE should be relevant for Swedish teacher education.
Doctoral students are admitted to the doctoral level within the subject areas at the participating HEIs and GRADE provides at least four courses on an annual basis. Courses, seminars, conferences, and supervision take place on different campuses and at a distance within the network. GRADE is a collective, dynamic and intellectually stimulating educational environment to which doctoral students, postdocs, and senior researchers at the HEIs are welcome.
GRADE is initially dimensioned for 12 doctoral students. The long-term ambition of the graduate school is to constitute a national hub for research on digital technologies in education with the admission of doctoral students every two years, and to establish a program for post-doc studies in the field.
For further information about the graduate school GRADE, please contact the board through coordinator Professor J. Ola Lindberg (ola.j.lindberg@umu.se).
