Summer schools for doctoral students

The 15th edition of the LERU Doctoral Summer School will be held at KU Leuven from 6 – 11 September 2026. The theme of this Doctoral Summer School will be “Inter-, Multi- and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Health”.

The LERU Doctoral Summer School at KU Leuven seeks to foster increased cooperation in research on health across all academic disciplines and in tandem with extra-academic partners. The timing is fortunate, since 2026 also sees the opening of Leuven’s new Vesalius Museum of Science, healthcare and society. Participants in the Summer School will be invited to join in pre-opening trial runs of the permanent exhibition and share their critical assessments in dedicated sessions of the Summer School programme.

Day One of the Summer School features expert surveys on inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary health research and on research-based public engagement initiatives on health, as well as a presentation of the Vesalius Museum, whose permanent exhibition will serve to loosely structure the Summer School programme. Days Two, Three and Four feature morning sessions by leading health researchers and afternoon sessions devoted to museum testing and group project work facilitated by local experts. On the final day, groups finalize their presentations and share their projects with university leaders, academics and guests.

During lunch breaks, there will be poster sessions on LERU Health Institutes and Young Researchers’ Careers Initiatives.

The course corresponds to approximately 5 ECTS.

The Summer School is structured around three thematic anchors, inspired by the narrative of the permanent exhibition of the forthcoming Vesalius Museum. These themes are fundamental to how we understand our bodies and health, and therefore are broad enough to engage participants from all disciplines:

1. Boundaries of Life – When does life begin, and when does it end?
2. Boundaries of Age – How do we map growth and ageing?
3. Boundaries of the Normal – How can health and illness be understood as a spectrum rather than a binary?

These anchors invite contributions from across the disciplinary spectrum, including biomedical sciences, social sciences, the humanities, natural sciences, technology, and the arts.

The LERU Doctoral Summer School 2026 welcomes participants from all disciplines whose research focuses principally on health, broadly conceived or promises to lend itself to extension to health research.

Applicants shall meet the following requirements:

• Must be registered as a doctoral candidate at Lund University.
• Must be keenly motivated to work on the topic of the LERU Summer School as set out in the programme and description.
• Must be able to participate in all activities in the programme.
• Must be fluent in written and spoken English.

The application shall be written in English and include:

• Motivation letter of approximately one A4 page. It should explain the candidate’s interest in the topic of the summer school, a description of what makes the candidate a suitable representative for Lund University and the contribution the candidate can make to the conference.
• Letter of recommendation from Head of Department, supervisor or equivalent person.
• CV, including name, gender, email, faculty/department and title of the PhD project.
• Excerpt from Ladok showing admission date and accomplishments.

The application should be sent to leru [at] global [dot] lu [dot] se at the latest by 15 January 2026.

The selection criteria are the quality of the motivation letter, arguments for participation, relevance to the theme of the conference and overall judgement of application and CV.

The maximum number of participants in the summer school is 48. Lund University conducts a selection procedure and nominates candidates to LERU: The first-ranked candidate from each University is unquestionable accepted. Second place (and any further places, based on availability) are decided by the host University of the Doctoral Summer School and LERU Doctoral Studies Community steering group after consideration of all applications, aiming to achieve a balanced representation with regard to disciplines, gender and university affiliation with due consideration of rank order and merit.

The participant fee is 600 EUR per participant. This includes course materials, accommodation, some of the meals and course participation. Lund University will cover the participant fee. Lund University will furthermore contribute with 4000 SEK for travel costs for each participant. Participants will need to arrange their own travel and travel insurance. Booking of travel should be done through the University procured agency. Participants are expected to cover the cost of any additional activity undertaken.