Review

Special circumstances sometimes require creative measures and alternative approaches. In planning the first Summer School of the Doctoral Program of the Development Area of the profile linie LIBERTY Global Knowledge Transfers and Translocal Paradoxes (GK&TP), we therefore relied early on a hybrid format of the implementation of the program. In cooperation with the program Innivation, Digitization and Structural Change and the already existing structures of the Graduate Academy of the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, we were able to put together an intensive two-week program that was primarily aimed at doctoral students in the development field and their research projects, but was also open to researchers from other fields and universities. Between July 19 and 30, various courses and workshops were held on topics relevant to the respective dissertation projects. In addition to methodological seminars, concepts were discussed and keynote lectures with subsequent discussions were held. The participants had the opportunity to discuss specific issues and questions regarding their doctoral theses together with national and international experts of the respective research fields and disciplines and to exchange ideas with each other. The program was filled with eleven researchers from four different countries.

The Summer School was kicked off by Dr. Luisa Conti, who conducted a workshop on the transformative potential of dialogue. In the hybrid format, participants were able to engage in a hands-on dialogue with each  other and explore the various possibilities of dialogue. The renowned scientist Prof. Dr. Peggy Levitt took up the title of the Summer School and spoke in her keynote lecture about the global transfer of knowledge and the accompanying inequalities and interpretative sovereignties of knowledge, which Levitt analyzed critically on the basis of her own studies.

Prof. Dr. Volker Gast gave an introduction to various tools and applications for quantitative text analysis and demonstrated a wide range of possibilities for analyzing and evaluating large amounts of data in a meaningful way. In Prof. Dr. Alexander Nagel's workshop, participants were given the opportunity to learn about religious pluralism in Germany, using Nagel's own research material to engage in an exchange about how religious diversity is addressed in refugee shelters, and to reflect on the results and impulses based on their own research projects. Prof. Dr. Hubert Knoblauch (TU Berlin) gave a Keynote Lecture on the Sociology of Knowledge and answered questions from the group of PhD students and other audience members. Dr. Sabrina Weiß () spoke in her workshop about the relationship between religious majorities and minorities in the Federal Republic of Germany and exchanged views with the participants about their individual research projects. On Saturday, the sociologist of religion Dr. Patrick Heiser (FU Hagen) was at our disposal, in which he presented the Grounded Theory Methodology on the basis of his own studies and provided the participants with material for joint practice and application of the method. Migration researcher and sociologist Prof. Dr. Ursula Boos-Nünning (University of Münster) gave a lecture on the challenges and possibilities of researching immigrant groups and also provided practical advice for individual research projects. Dr. Johannes Wischmeyer (EKD) explained and discussed with the participants concepts and terms that were directly related to the title of the Summer School and promoted a special consideration of historical analyses. Prof. Dr. Dominique Foray (EPFL) dealt with the topic of knowledge from an economic perspective based on entrepreneurship and innovation.

Prof. Dr. Daniel L. Everett (Bentley University) addressed the topic of paradoxes separately in a keynote lecture and impressively demonstrated the effects of globalization and the increased transfer of knowledge the advantages that come with learning from other cultures. The Summer School was concluded by Prof. Dr. Davide Secchi (Syddansk Universitet) with a workshop on Agent-Based Simulation (ABS). Secchi was able to demonstrate the advantages of simulations to the participants and together they designed a simulation procedure in which fictitious influences determined the outcome of a process. The interdisciplinary exchange was found to be profitable by many of the participants and workshop leaders. The hybrid implementation made it possible to open the participation to interested persons and scientists from various programs and universities. A total of 28 participants from more than 10 countries were registered and used the opportunity to connect virtual or in real life with each other. Participants from Finland, South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia and many other countries were able to take part in the program with the participants in Jena and enter into a profitable exchange. This gave the topic of the Summer School a direct practical relevance. The Summer School showed that digital educational experiences in interdisciplinary and multicultural teams can be successfully used for education and training at the highest academic level. The organization, moderation, and selection of speakers and workshop leaders was largely organized independently from within the doctoral program. In particular, we would like to thank Franziska Sandkühler, Fahed Al-Janbi and Stefan van der Hoek for their commitment in the preparation team and for taking over the moderation of the individual lectures and workshops.

(author: Stefan van der Hoek)