NEWS Strategic funding from Arctic Centre
Through strategic funding from Arctic Centre (amongst others), Umeå University could host the conference on special education in the North: "Common Ways", with the theme "Equal education through development and research cooperation."
The conference "Common Ways" was held at Umeå Campus 1–2 November 2022. The purpose of the conference was to give the attendees access to research and educational competence available at our universities in northern Sweden, Norway and Finland. The conference also aimed to create opportunities for networking within and between school actors and researchers in the countries.
The application requests were so many, we had to close the registration before deadline.
The conference made 160 attendees and the large interest came from preschool teachers, special school teachers, and school teachers from Finland, Sweden, and Norway.
– The application requests were so many, we had to close the registration before deadline, says one of the organisors, Gerd Pettersson, who works at the Department of Education at Umeå University.
The large interest could stem from the fact that the attendees have urged for physical meetings and dialogs with colleagues from different countries. Furthermore, the conference were supposed to be held in 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic.
– But of course, an interesting conference programme also draws attention, Pettersson says.
During the two conference days, the attendees could take part in lectures with talks from researchers and school governments from Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The evaluations showed that all lectures had a good quality, were relevant to the theme, and were interesting, according to the attendees. Furthermore, the attendees were offered the chance to choose between eleven dialog groups. Within the groups, teachers or researchers from Norway, Sweden, and Finland gave short presentations of their finished or ongoing research projects. These where followed by organised discussions between the presenter and the attendees. Each attendee could choose to listen and participate in three group presentations.
– Dialouge groups became a very successful way to spread knowlegde and build networks for future collaborations, Pettersson shares.
As mentioned before, the plan was to host the conference in 2020, but it was postponed due to the pandemic.
– We are very grateful for Arctic Centre and their understanding for the change in plans, the conference group says, through Pettersson.
Due to the fact that the funding could be kept for later, it was possible to continue with the planning of the conference, even though it was postponed.