ECREA Summer School 2018: Call for Participants

We are happy to invite you to participate in the ECREA European Media
and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2018 that will take place at
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, from July 19 to July
27, 2018.

THE FOCUS
The ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School 2018
brings together members of the European research community to this
summer school in order to debate contemporary issues in media,
communication and cultural studies. The main emphasis of this summer
school is not on a particular theme, but on providing structural and
individuated PhD-support for young European scholars, through a variety
of working forms, including feedback seminars, workshops, and lectures.
The summer school aims to provide a supportive international setting
where doctoral students can present their ongoing work, receive feedback
on their PhD-projects from international experts and meet students and
academics from other countries, establishing valuable contacts for the
future.

International director: Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
Programme directors: Fausto Colombo, Simone Tosoni
Summer School coordinators: Maria Francesca Murru, Laura Peja

FEES
Payment of a registration fee of 890 Euros (included VAT) is required
for consortium participants.
Payment of a registration fee of 1100 Euros (included VAT) is required
for non-consortium participants.

Applicants from consortium universities and from affiliated partners of
the summer school must agree their submission with their institutional
coordinators before submitting their application to the summer school.
The total number of students will be limited to 45, part of them
selected by the consortium members.

For all the students (consortium and non-consortium) the summer school
will provide:
–   tuition and study materials
–   summer school materials (including 2 books)
–   accommodation for the whole duration of the summer school
–   breakfast
–   welcome dinner
–   farewell dinner
–   lunch in working days (except Sunday July 22)
–   welcome dinner
–   coffee breaks with beverages, food and fruits during the breaks in the
morning and in the afternoon
–   WiFi access at the summer school venue

Students will be hosted in double rooms. Please notice that while
students are allowed to find alternative solutions for their
accommodation, this will be at their expense, and won’t affect the fee.

CREDITS
The Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Faculty of Political and
Social Sciences) acknowledges the Summer School activities with 10 ECTS
for the participation in the full programme.
Each year, the Summer School publishes a book with the proceedings of
the presentations by lecturers and students. The books are available in
printed as well as digital form (open access). The book contains the
summaries of all student papers/PhD projects. Six of the best student
papers are published along with contributions by the lecturing researchers.

CANCELLATION POLICY
Should a participant need to cancel 15 days or more prior to the start
of the Summer School, they will receive a refund of the fee minus the
10% for administrative expenses.
Should a participant need to cancel between 15 and 4 days prior to the
start of the Summer School, 50% of the registration fee will be reimbursed.
Please note that cancellation requests made 3 days prior to the start of
the Summer School or later will not receive a refund.
Cancellation should be notified by sending an email to:
formazione.permanente-mi@unicatt.it.

DEADLINES
The deadline for all the applications (both consortium and
non-consortium) for the summer school is April 15, 2018.
All applicants will be informed about the selection of participants
before the end of April.

ECREA GRANTS
ECREA will be awarding grants for participation at the Summer School.
More information on the grants will be available at the ECREA website
(http://www.ecrea.eu) after 1st March 2018. This grant programme will be
managed by ECREA and not by the summer school organisers.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Stage One
When applying, each interested student is expected to fill out the
application form on the Summer School website. Prior registration on the
website is necessary (http://ecreasummerschool.org/registration.html).
Uncompleted applications will not be eligible for the selection process.
Applications can only be submitted via this website.

The application form includes:
1. a 400 words abstract of the PhD project
2. a time table of the PhD project, indicating the present status of the
project
3. a short CV according to the provided forms.

The deadline for submitting the application is April 15, 2018, 23:59
hours (UTC +1). Notifications of acceptance will be sent before the end
of April.

Stage Two
In second phase, students whose abstracts are accepted will be expected
to fulfil the following requirements:
1. To write 10-page (3000 words) paper on their PhD project as a whole
and to upload it on the website. The 10-page paper should be a report of
the student’s ongoing doctoral research and not a conventional
conference paper or a report of findings. Rather, it is expected that
the student will briefly present the focus of the research and then take
up aspects of the research process: methodology, theory and practical
issues on which he/she would like to receive feedback (deadline: May 28,
2018).
2. To write a set of questions (maximum 1 page) with questions or
problems that students would like to be discussed during the workshops.
This one page needs to be part of the same Word/PDF file that also
contains the 10-page paper (deadline: May 28, 2018).
3. Based on the abstracts and titles of other student papers, everyone
is expected to choose up to 3 papers they would be interested in being a
respondent (deadline: June 15, 2018; further details will be provided
after selection).
4. Additional registration at the Università Cattolica website and
payment of the registration fee (deadline: 1 June, 2018; further details
will be provided after selection).
5. At the start of the Summer School, students have to have a 10-minute
seminar presentation ready, covering the main points of their work. Each
student is also expected to actively participate in the discussions of
their own and other people’s work. In order to ensure maximum benefits
of the seminars, everyone will have to read all other participants’
papers before the Summer School begins.

SELECTION PROCESS AND CRITERIA
In respect of the selection of doctoral students from consortium
universities, each one has appointed a summer school coordinator
(http://ecreasummerschool.org/institutional-coordinators.html). The
summer school coordinators are responsible for promoting the summer
school within the consortium partner institution and to other academic
institutions in their country. Consortium partner universities and
departments are well-established and of best reputation in the field of
media and communication, and have leading scholars in their faculties
(see a list of previous lecturers
http://ecreasummerschool.org/past-lecturers.html). All participating
institutions of the summer school have experience in local, national and
international cooperation. The departments have institutional contacts
with higher education institutions within their own country and abroad,
and well-established doctoral programmes. The consortium partner
institutions and their summer school coordinators are fully autonomous
in selecting their PhD student(s).

The selection of doctoral students from other institutions are based on
a review process organised by the executive committee of the summer
school. This process is open to all PhD students (including students
from the consortium universities not selected by their institutional
coordinators ). As already specified, each candidate has to submit
electronically a) a 400-words proposal of his/her PhD project, b) a time
table of the PhD project, indicating the present status of the project,
and c) a CV (work and study history). This application will be subjected
to a double-blind peer review, coordinated by the summer school local
organisers. Based on this review, the executive committee of the summer
school will select the participants.

The selection criteria are:
”   quality of the PhD project, assessed in relation to its i) theoretical
approach, ii) methodological standards and iii) potential for innovation;
”   the progression of the PhD project (projects in a “middle phase” are
strongly preferred);
”   the relevance of the aims and objectives of the PhD project within
communication and media studies.

CONTACTS
For accommodation, logistic and financial issues: elisa.ballerini@unicatt.it
For issues related to the programme: laura.peja@unicatt.it
For issues related to the website: simone.tosoni@unicatt.it
—————