400015 SE Better Science. On Critical Excellence (2025W)

Embarking on a PhD Journey is not only a scientific and intellectual endeavor, but also an affective, social and institutional one. In the last decades, within an increasingly neoliberalised and metrics-based academic system, it is ever more important to grasp the economic, political and social transformations of academia that influence the science we do. In the Theory Seminar Better Science. On Critical Excellence, we will read and collectively discuss works that theorize 21st century academia in critical ways. The aim is to get insights into scholarship that theorizes the doing of science on a meta level and to imagine concrete, local possibilities to do science in a more equal, creative, inclusive and diverse way. The theory seminar includes a one day, practical workshop on January 14th, with a representative from the Swiss Better Science Initiative https://betterscience.ch/en#/