POLYTHEA – The opportunities and challenges of doctoral training networks

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a multi-component therapy which relies on the delivery of a photosensitizer drug and light in the presence of oxygen to mediate a therapeutic anti-cancer or anti-microbial effect. As a multi-component therapy, a multidisciplinary research approach is required to achieve success with the application of PDT. The POLYTHEA network, a project funded under the Marie Skolodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of Horizon 2020 (H2020) program, provided an opportunity to build a collaboration of laboratories across Europe with the necessary expertise required for the different facets of PDT. In the process, ten early-stage researchers (ESRs) were trained with the aim of achieving European Joint Doctorate degrees. The project managed to fulfill goals of collaborative research, transferable skills training, and public outreach, despite the occurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic. The benefits of this type of MSCA funding for the main participants, students and supervisors, are highly relevant to their career but are not free from challenges. With the POLYTHEA project soon ending, a reflection of the most positive and negative aspects of the project from its inception is opportune.

Internationalisation at home. The experience of doing an internship during the confinement due to COVID-19 in Colombia and Spain (2000-2020)

Under the direction of researchers from the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia (UPTC) and the Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla (UPO), this work intends to analyze the experience of the internationalisation of the Doctorate in Education Sciences Rudecolombia, comparing the first in-person internship in the year 2000 with the virtual one that took place in the Covid-19 pandemic period. An analysis of the internationalisation of the at-home curriculum was carried out with the mechanisms that were established in order to reach their members, establishing links that humanize academic relationships with human challenges and virtual realities in the context of cuts to the financing of public universities in Colombia. Using the methods of social history and heuristic analysis of the sources, it is concluded that the doctoral program has from the beginning implemented internationalisation, mobility and research in the curriculum. This virtual internship showed the good practices developed by universities working as a network and the creative capacity of the collective to provide experiences in specific spaces and times, with activities permeated by human affect in distance education, solving problems related to virtual learning as well as human and institutional issues, in addition to those pertaining to the lack of financing for public universities in Colombia. © 2022 hist.mem. All rights reserved.

Authentic assessment and work-based learning: the case of professional studies in a post-COVID Australia

Purpose To explore the conceptualisation and operationalisation of authentic assessment in work-based learning and research. Design/methodology/approach The relationship between authentic assessment and work-based learning and research is examined using a postgraduate degree program at a regional university in Australia as a case example to identify unique pedagogical features of work-based learning as they are linked to assessment. Findings A dynamic is created between formative and summative authentic assessment practices and the cross-current nature of learning in work and research, leading to a range of lifelong learning outcomes. A framework for such a dynamic is presented. Originality/value The pedagogy informing work-based learning emphasises developing higher-order thinking through reflective practice, developing competencies and capabilities associated with professional practice and developing academic writing and research skills to enhance professional identity at the postgraduate level for mid- to senior-career professionals. However, the relationship of authentic assessment to work-based learning and research has not been explicated in the literature and its application in post-COVID work environments has yet to be fully examined.

My journey to this place called the RAC: Reflections on a movement in critical race thought and critical race hope in higher education

This chapter recounts the story of how I came to design a Research Apprenticeship Course at UCLA-what we call the RAC. I lay out the origin story of the RAC dating back to early collaborations with Arturo Madrid of the Tomas Rivera Policy Research Center and the Ford Foundation Family of Fellows in the mid to late 1980s. These collaborations helped me establish the blueprint for the RAC as an academic counterspace-a space centered on identifying, analyzing, and challenging race and racism in education. We did this by extending Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the Law to the fields of Education, Race and Ethnic Studies, Women of Color Feminist Theories, and Freirean Critical Theory. My journey weaves in the stories of former students and their relationship to the RAC and how the RAC impacted their research, teaching, and service. PROLOGUE This essay has an interesting origin story. The two editors of this special issue, Professors Laurence Parker and Maria Ledesma contacted me in early 2020 and asked if I would write a reflective story of my Research Apprenticeship Course (RAC). To move the process along, Professors Parker and Ledesma came to the RAC and spoke to our students on March 13, 2020, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, UCLA shut down all on-campus instruction on Wednesday, March 11, and moved online. The March 13 RAC was my first attempt at online instruction. If I recall, we had around 30 students attending online via Zoom, and five were in our Moore Hall classroom. During the RAC, Professors Parker and Ledesma asked the students to send their reflections or their stories of the RAC. They also sent out an email to former students asking for their reflections. After the March 13(th) RAC, I wrote the first draft of this article. Professors Parker and Ledesma then inserted the selected reflective quotes they received from the students into the narrative. I then weaved the quotes into the story of the RAC. In the Critical Race Counterstory tradition, the following narrative reflects the collaboration of Professors Parker and Ledesma, my former students, and myself.