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ItalianRSA
- 31 Luglio 2026
ICoRSA and ITARSA at EURODOC Annual Conference 2025,
“Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Academia”
IT UNIVERSITY OF CPH, Copenhagen, August 6 & 7
G.Avellis
Gianna Avellis, Chair of ICoRSA represented ICoRSA At the Annual Conference of EURODOC2025 and actively participated to the Workshop 1 “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equitable Opportunities: Best Practices, Academic Engagement, and Enhancing the University’s Democratic Mission”, a co-creation workshop, at University of Copenhagen ITU.
The conference was organised by EURODOC and PAND, the Danish association of EURODOC, with support of the IT University of Copenhagen (ITU), and further support by Dansk Magisterforening (section for Universiteter), PROSA, Tborgfondet, Wistifonden, CoARA.
Together with other Scandinavian countries, Denmark shares a reputation of being inclusive, especially in terms of gender equality. But even in culture of flat hierarchies, inequalities further persist, as experienced by many ECRs across Europe. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in today’s academia serve not only as moral imperatives but also as catalysts for innovation, progress and genuine representation, and directly influences the quality and integrity of research, teaching, and institutional culture.
The main issues addressed by the conference were as follows:
- How can universities and researchers contribute to shaping democratic societies, not only at the European level, but also at nationally and locally?
- How can academic communities become more inclusive and equitable?
EURODOC2025 proved to be a unique platform for Early Career Researchers to share their insights, voice their concerns, and present solutions in the two days’ Conference, with three Keynotes by:
- Sara Pilia
- Mira Skadegard
- Valeria Borsotti
And two Early Career Researchers’ Sessions and Panel Discussions on, namely:
- Equality and Inclusion in Danish universities: the VIVE report
- European Perspectives on Inclusive Academic Environment
Followed by three co-creation Workshop (participants choose one) on:
- Workshop1: “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equitable Opportunities: Best Practices, Academic Engagement, and Enhancing the University’s Democratic Mission”
- Workshop 2: “Towards Mental Health and Healthy Work Environments”
- Workshop 3 “Open and Transparent Assessment Practices in Doctoral Education”
Many important insights from the Panel Sessions have been the ADI Survey, www.dottorato.it, the Italian Association of EURODOC, which pointed out that about 85% of people can be expelled from Universities in Italy by July 2026, DOSZ Association of PhD in Europe, based in Hungary, which presented their Ambassador System (in 2025/2026 there will be in 44 countries 44 ambassadors to monitor, disseminate and collect the best practices of PhD candidates) not a lot of countries in Europe but in Brazil, America, Russia and Asia. DOSZ dosz_international_community has several Working Group, respectively in:
- Mental Health (International students experience additional challenges and higher level of stress compared to domestic students”
- Scientific Cooperation (International students often struggle to navigate academic publishing and conference systems that are unfamiliar with them, limiting their research impact and professional development)
- Integration (International students experience considerable amount of stress while adapting to the culture of the host institute…intercultural events organisation and capacity building activities were foreseen in this context)
- Stipendium Hungaricum (International students who received targeted support specific to their scholarship program and host country academic systems, demonstrate significantly better economic outcomes and integration).
- Communication & Social Media
The Worksing Group above can be adopted by ICORSA for its international researchers, besides the Communication and Social Media Working Group already performed already in ICoRSA.
KRD, Polish National Association of Doctoral Candidates, presented the very interesting project PHD WELL with its three Pillars on “Founded Therapeutic Support”, Systematic Diagnosis of the Problem”, and “Training and Education” .
Finally Emma Day, Susanne Ditievsen, Monica Dieti, Norbert Bencze, and Moritz Bohme concluded the conference by addressing several challenges of the PhD students in Academia.
The Conference was very fruitful under the networking aspect as G.Avellis contacted several key people at EURODOC, such as the current President and vice-President, the several chairs of the EURODOC Associations and the staff at EURODOC, which who discussed the SECURE project issues and the new project SECURE2, including future collaborations with ICoRSA.
