As we mark this ten-year milestone for the PaTHES conference, we are excited to reconnect, reflect and envision together with you at Aarhus University in Denmark. A decade has passed since the first gathering of PaTHES scholars at Aarhus, where a shared commitment to open dialogue, critical reflection, and collaborative exploration of the purposes and futures of higher education first took shape. The ongoing evolution of PaTHES attests to the collective curiosity and care that continue to shape our conversations and our shared pursuit of meaningful change in higher education.

As scholars, we look back at the past where values and beliefs were shaped and act in the present towards a better future. And in our everyday lives, we have the capacity for agency as academics. In their work on teacher agency, Priestley, Biesta and Robinson (2015), describe agency as enacted in the contextualised present in an interplay between the past and the future. The contextualised present is shaped by the past, rooted in beliefs and values that articulate desires for an imagined future. However the present is also shaped, by relations and relationships, by the local context, including systems and resources. The present that we find ourselves in may constrain or enhance what is possible in real or imagined terms. Although we are sometimes constrained, restricted and blocked, at other times we may feel empowered, autonomous and creative. And even when we feel constrained, we are still able to find ways to act ‘under the radar’, ‘on the periphery’, ‘outside the box’ to achieve what is important and to uphold our values and visions of something better. This means that academic agency can be a vehicle to negotiate, contest, adopt and reject what fits with our visions and desires for a purposeful future (Ashwin, 2009).

Registration

Regitration is now closed. 

Become a PaTHES member

To register as a PaTHES member for 2026 please go to this link first https://pathes.org/membership/ and read about the different categories of membership and sign up. If you do not wish to become a member register for the conference as a non-member.

Please find below the important dates for the conference preparation.

We look forward to meeting you and to discuss and listen in a collaborative open environment created by the  PaTHES community of scholars.

Organisers

The conference will be hosted jointly by the Centre for Educational Development (CED) and Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) both at Aarhus University, Denmark.