Summer School 2026

 

out of studios // on to sites:
temporalities of (design research)
living labs in the wild

18-21 August 2026
IT University of Copenhagen

For more information and to apply, click here.

Teacher/Facilitators

Thomas Binder
IT University of Copenhagen

Karey Helms
Umeå Institute of Design

Tom Jenkins
IT University of Copenhagen

Tau Lenskjold
University of Southern Denmark

Heidi Pietarinen
University of Lapland

Anna-Mamusu Wehlitz
IT University of Copenhagen

Frequently Asked Questions:

Does the Nordes Summer School offer ECTS?

Yes, in 2026 the Summer School operates as a PhD course at the IT University of Copenhagen and offers 3 ECTS for complete participation.

How will students be accepted to attend the Nordes Summer School?

We will select up to 20 students, prioritising based on their project’s relevance to the course theme, affiliation with Nordic universities, and to students that work with/are part of underrepresented communities.

Are there any formatting expectations or additional material that you expect for the application?

We don’t have any formatting requirements, so feel free to submit whatever you’d like. If you have images or a link that helps to describe your work, feel free to include them.

Is there funding to attend the Summer School?

Unfortunately, no. The Summer School is structured as a PhD course, and offers 3 ECTS for complete participation. This may mean that your PhD school can support your participation, but we have no funding ourselves.

What is the structure of the programme?

We expect a full-day schedule of a mixture of sessions and design activity, as well as opportunities to spend time with instructors and one another at the end of the day. As above, we cannot pay for meals during the summer school, but we can arrange dinners and the like that attendees can pay for themselves.

Where should we stay?

There are a number of hotels near to ITU depending on budget. We don't have any specific recommendations, and expect that this may need to be dependent on participant budget. This list is borrowed from the DIS 2024 conference, also hosted at ITU:

NORDES Summer Schools

The summer schools are workshops for phd students that takes place every second year and serves several purposes:

  • The summer schools introduce areas of reflection, theory and design that typically will be regarded as too marginal to be a part of the Ph.d. curriculum at a design faculty.
  • The summer schools provide a common ground for Nordic PhD students to meet, learn from one another and provide the basis for both formal and informal research programs and projects.
  • The summer schools will share thematic similarities with the coming conference. On this basis the summer school aid the students in developingpapers suitable for publication at the conference.
  • The summer schools also provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge between people responsible for ph.d. programs in the various nordic countries. It is the ambition of Nordes that the summer schools will develop into world class design research courses that are applicable for the PhD programs in the nordic countries and beyond.