The recently launched Swedish national action plan for digitalisation of schools emphasizes teacher education as crucial for preparing teachers to be able to use digital technology in meaningful ways in their professional activities. Within the graduate school, issues related to digitalisation in schools, preschools and teacher education are addressed in a broad sense.
The research school UPGRADE – Teacher Education and the Digitalization in Schools – was established in 2019 and is a national research school located at nine universities – the Umeå University (host), the University of Gothenburg, the University of Gävle, the Halmstad University, the Jönköping University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Linnaeus University, the Mid Sweden University, and the University West.
Today UPGRADE 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, UPGRADE coordinates its course offering, conducts higher seminar activities and provides workshops. The universities that are part of UPGRADE 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 universities also cooperate with regard to supervision of doctoral students and other activities.
A basic starting point for UPGRADE is an interdisciplinary approach. Didactics, Education, Educational Work, IT and Learning, Communication Studies, Applied IT, Informatics, Media Technology, and Work-Integrated Learning are the subject areas represented in the research 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 UPGRADE should be relevant for Swedish teacher education.
Doctoral students have been admitted to the doctoral level within the subject areas at the participating universities and UPGRADE 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. UPGRADE is a collective, dynamic and intellectually stimulating educational environment to which doctoral students, postdocs, and senior researchers at the universities are welcome.
