Open Call Doctoral Supervisors' Summer School 2026

OPEN CALL

Doctoral Supervisors’ Summer School 17 – 21 August 2026, Zurich

Hosted by Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)

Application deadline: February 23, 2026

Concept

The Doctoral Supervisors’ Summer School aims to enhance the understanding of doctoral supervision in the arts. Creating a space to think and work together, it offers an opportunity for both reflection and exchange among colleagues. The international network builds on the experience of its participants; it learns from their different institutional contexts. The yearly gatherings delve into the specificities of doctoral supervision in the arts, thus allowing for it to be better positioned and framed.

Theme: Instituting Supervision

The Doctoral Supervisors’ Summer School Zurich builds on previous editions organised in Helsinki (2025), Copenhagen (2024) and Utrecht (2023). Focussing on doctoral supervision in the arts, the program in Zurich will be dedicated to Instituting Supervision: what kinds of conceptual and practical, political and ethical dilemmas are related to instituting supervision? How can doctoral supervision be institutionally facilitated and supported, given both the processual and singular nature of research in the arts and the aesthetic components and relational dimensions of its supervision? How can supervisors navigate an institutional space that upholds and establishes certain standards while enabling contingent trajectories? Which soft skills do/don’t supervisors need that cannot be guaranteed by an institution? What functions, what institutional formats and conditions need recasting? And what alternative forms can they take – a question that adds to the urgency of the theme given a current world in which systemic violence, be it environmental, socioeconomic or geopolitical, reigns supreme?

The questions will be addressed in a program consisting of different working modes, varying from keynote addresses and input talks by Bojana Kunst and Chris Salter to work in smaller groups and collective workshops by professionals from the field.

Specific questions we aim to focus on include, but are not exclusive to:

• Soft skills for supervision in the arts
• Challenges of inter-/trans-/post-disciplinary research
• Forms of documentation and dissemination of doctoral research in the arts
• Supervising collaborative artistic research practices
• Ethics as relational practice in the arts
• Tensions between openness and standardization
• Instituting (and) precarity
• Diverging expectations: between art field and academia
• Diverse ways of knowing and boundaries of ownership
• …

Target group

We invite artists, artist-researchers and academics supervising doctoral candidates in the arts to apply. Experience of at least one ongoing or completed doctoral supervision process is required. Our goal is to create a working environment where people of all cultural backgrounds, genders, sexes, ethnicities, ages, and abilities feel free to participate and share their experiences and expertise.

Participation fee

The participants and/or their home institution will cover the fee of CHF350.00. The fee includes lunch on all days, one dinner, Kaffee + Gipfeli in the morning, and refreshments during the breaks. Accommodation is taken care of by the participants; reservations with reduced rates are made with two hotels in the area. Further recommendations for accommodation will be provided upon acceptance.

Travel costs

The participants and/or their home institutions are expected to cover the travel costs to and from Zurich.

Venue

The Doctoral Supervisors’ Summer School 2026 understands the (art) historically lively city of Zurich where it takes place both as its practical site of encounter and its source of inspiration for reflection on what it means to institute doctoral supervision in the arts. Toni Areal, where Zurich University of the Arts is located, will act as the doctoral summer school’s hub; alternatives to institutional models will be rethought through connections with other venues in town. Zurich’s Limmat river, its lake and mountains offer possibilities to meet otherwise with colleagues.

How to apply – deadline 23.02.2026

The application consists of a motivation letter and a short bio that are sent to the organisers via an online form.

Write a motivation letter (max. 1000 words) and mention what issues specific to the theme of instituting supervision you would like to work on within the collegial setting of the summer school. You belong to the target group if you are supervising at least one doctoral artistic research project. Add a short bio as well (max. 150 words).

Send your motivation letter and bio by 23.02.2026 via the online form, in which you are asked to give your contact information. You can fill out the form here.

Selection of participants

The selection of the participants will be made by the organising team: Ilse van Rijn, Marcel Bleuler, Laura von Niederhäusern, Rama Gottfried, Mika Elo and Vytautas Michelkevičius. The total number of participants will be max. 40 persons, including the organisers.

We plan to communicate the decisions to all applicants at the latest 9 March 2026. The selected participants will receive detailed information about the payment method of the fee and other practical matters in the spring of 2026. The program will start on the afternoon of Monday August 17^th and end on Friday August 21^st.   

Contact

The summer school is hosted by Zurich University of the Arts. Please contact Ilse van Rijn for any questions you might have: ilse.vanrijn@zhdk.ch

Read the Call online