Georg Eckert PhD Program 2026 – Call for Applications

Ever wondered how seemingly dull textbooks can be read as rich and engaging texts of memory culture? Curious about how young people appropriate educational media and what we can learn from their interactions with it? Interested in how ethnographic research can be conducted in schools and how the diverse data generated through classroom observation can be analysed? Keen to learn how to conduct and analyse interviews with teachers about the use of AI in schools? And excited about how Digital Humanities tools can be used to analyse and interpret large corpora and how AI can be trained to distinguish between different types of texts in educational media?

These questions—and many more—are at the heart of the Georg Eckert Doctoral Program, offered by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute (GEI) in Braunschweig, Germany. The GEI is an international reference centre for educational media research, with more than 50 researchers and a globally unique library of school textbooks from 180 countries.

The program is designed for doctoral researchers working on educational media and media practices. It provides a compact, intensive introduction to key theories and methods in this interdisciplinary field.

All sessions are hands-on and practice-oriented. Leading experts present their approaches and apply them directly to empirical data from their own research projects on educational media. Participants gain insight into how theory becomes practice—and how to transfer these methods to their own doctoral work.

You will also meet and exchange ideas with peers from around the world and across disciplines. In addition, you will discuss your dissertation project with Barbara Christophe, academic director of the GEPP, and other participants.

Join us for an intensive program that bridges theory and practice and opens up new perspectives on your research.

If we have sparked your interest, please apply by 15 July 2026 to christophe@gei.de. By 15 August 2026, 15 participants will be selected.

Applications should include

• Personal details: Name, supervising institution, academic degrees, academic discipline, start date of doctoral work
• A brief description of your doctoral project in a maximum of 5000 characters, in which you briefly state your research question, justify its relevance, define the field of research to which you are contributing, identify the research gap you are filling, and provide information about the methods you will use to collect and evaluate data as well as about first results if available

Participation in the program is free of charge. Travel expenses cannot be covered.