GIREP Summer School, Rethymno, Crete, Greece
The second GIREP Summer School will be held in Rethymno on the island of Crete, Greece. The Summer School precedes the GIREP-MPTL 2026 Conference. It is organized by the International Research Group on Physics Teaching – GIREP [Groupe International de Recherche sur l’Enseignement de la Physique] and the University of Crete.
The GIREP Summer School is a PER-specific convening that aims to open opportunities for developing community among novice and experienced researchers. The programme is planned from Friday evening until Sunday evening. The core of the School is working groups consisting of 5-6 PhD students and 3-4 experienced researchers. The students take turns presenting their work and questions, and receiving feedback from the group members. Ground rules serve to establish norms and ensure a safe place to discuss dilemmas of PER practice.
The Summer School consists of two types of sessions:
- Working-group sessions: Each session lasts 90 minutes and focuses on the work-in-progress of a single PhD student.
- One-half of each session is devoted to a PhD student presenting their work (either in the form of a 45-minute presentation, or in the form of a 15-minute presentation followed by 30 minutes of workshop activities anchored in participant artifacts (e.g., bottom-up analysis of interview transcripts; analysis of respondents’ data with a coding scheme, etc.)).
- The second half of the session is devoted to discussion with junior and expert researchers focused on the presenter's dilemmas.
- Whole-group sessions, in which participants from different working groups will meet, such as
- Reflection sessions focused on participants' experiences and challenges as newcomers to the community
- Plenary sessions focused on educational research practices
- Social sessions focused on building community and strong connections among researchers.
Cost: Though the budget has not been finalized, we expect that the cost per participant will be approximately 200 Euro (excluding accommodation). Dinner on Friday, and breaks, lunch, and dinner on Saturday and Sunday will be provided.
Eligibility:
PhD students should meet two criteria. (a) They should have at least second-year standing in their PhD studies by the time of the Summer School and have passed the PhD proposal stage; and b) They are no closer than nine months away from submitting their PhD dissertation.
Supervisors of participating PhD students are most encouraged to attend.
Other PER researchers may apply.
See important dates.
See application instructions for PhD students; for supervisors of PhD student participants; for other researchers.
