“A sense of excitement in the air”

NCoE NordWel and NCoE REASSESS organized in cooperation with the Centre for Welfare State Research, University of Southern Denmark, an international summer school in Odense and Svendborg, 15-20 August 2010.

The aim of the summer school was to stimulate critical discussions across disciplines and between established scholars and the coming generation of welfare state researchers. Over the six very intense days more than 40 PhD-students from Europe and the US as well as more than 20 senior scholars were engaged in discussions of papers and lectures. The high standard of the papers, and of the key note lectures, and not least the very open and critical discussions both within and between the formal sessions, are considered by the organizers as signs of a very successful summer school. As stated by one of the participants in her feedback to the organizers: “There was a sense of excitement in the air, and that is always a very good thing.”

The summer school has attracted international attention. The 40 participants were selected among more than 100 applicants from all over the world, and the list of teachers and lecturers includes a distinguished group of leading scholars including Bernhard Ebbinghaus (University of Mannheim), Bruno Palier (Sciences Po, Paris), Christoph Conrad (University of Geneva), Gerhard A. Ritter (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Gøsta Esping-Andersen (University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona), Julia Lynch (University of Pennsylvania), Joakim Palme (Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm and Uppsala University), Marta Szebehely (Stockholm University), Noel Whiteside (University of Warwick), Olli Kangas (Kela, Helsinki), Philip Manow (University of Heidelberg), Bjørn Hvinden (Nova, Oslo), Pauli Kettunen (University of Helsinki), Pirjo Markkola (Jyväskylä University), Cathie Jo Martin (Boston University), Christine Trampusch (Universität Bern), Kees van Kersbergen (VU Amsterdam/Århus University), Niels Ploug (Statistics Denmark and Danish National Centre for Social Research), Viggo Nordvik (NOVA, Oslo), Niels Finn Christiansen (honorary Professor at Centre for Welfare State Research) as well as Patrick Emmenegger, Klaus Petersen and Jon Kvist (all University of Southern Denmark, Odense).