The Working Lives Research Institute works with many academics and practioners around the world. Our common objectives in this international work are to improve understanding of the worlds of working people everywhere, to advance social justice wherever we can, and to introduce those students and social partners with whom we work to different ways of seeing the world.
The International Working Lives Network was set up in 1996 at a Conference of Scandinavian doctoral students to which Professor Bernt Schiller had invited Professor Jean Pierre Durand from Evry University and Dr Steve Jefferys from Keele University. This international exchange was so successful it was decided to repeat it the following year, but to also extend an invitation to some doctoral students from Keele and Evry. The following year international relations got still closer with the beginnings of research collaborations (see Research Collabotations) and the implementation of a rotation principle by which the welcoming department would fund the visitors' accommodation and subsistence, while the visitors would pay their travel costs.
The format of the doctoral schools is kept as friendly and informal as possible. The visiting 'senior' staff are asked to speak slowly and clearly in English and wherever possible to speak to slides or overheads for the benefit of non-English speakers. The visiting staff are asked to make a few plenary presentations on cross-cutting issues, hopefully of relevance to all. Roughly 75% of the available time is devoted to papers being presented by the doctoral students. These papers range from PhD proposals to discussion of methodological problems to presentation of whole chapters.
The host 'senior' academics have the responsibility of organising the agenda and recommending themes if they considered that helpful.
In 2000, the IWL network agreed to welcome the University of North London, and in 2002 it also embraced UWE. The most recent recruit to the Network was ULB, who joined in 2004.
Keele University
Evry University
Goteborg University
University of the West of England
Universite Libre de Bruxelles
2005 University of the West of England in Bristol
2004 London Metropolitan and Keele University in London
2003 Göteborg University in Uddevalla
2002 Evry University in Paris
2001 Keele University in Keele
2000 Göteborg university and (University of Copenhagen
in Denmark)
1999 Evry University in Paris
1998 Keele University in Barlaston
1997 Goteborg University at Orust
1996 Goteborg University in Göteborg
Year |
Programme |
Title |
Partner |
| 2006-9 | EU Framework 6 | PIQUE | Göteborg |
| 2005-7 | ESF CAWA | CAWA | Göteborg |
| 2003-5 | EU Framework 5 | RITU | Göteborg |
| 2002-6 | EU Framework 5 | SMALL | Göteborg |
| 1999-2002 | France Telecom | Evry | |
| 1998-2001 | EU Framework 4 | Göteborg, Evry, ULB |
For further information about the International Working Lives Network please contact Prof Steve Jefferys, s.jefferys@londonmet.ac.uk, Tel. +44 (0) 207 320 3007.
