A high-quality example of European inter-universitary co-operation, to which the LEPS strongly contributed, is the European Phd on Social Representations and Communication, developed since 1992 by Annamaria De Rosa (University Sapienza, Rome). Under the patronage of the "Joint Development Curriculum vitae" section of the Erasmus program and within the framework of the of Socrates program this European Phd link a network of thirteen European universities on the basis, essentially, of the teams of researchers taking part in the activities of the LEPS. Within this framework was held form 1995 to 2004, ten international summer schools, directed by Professor Annamaria De Rosa. Their successor, the International Lab Meeting Series; this European PhD lays out from now on, from the quality of its academic formation and its European orientation, of the financial support of the prestigious program Marie Curie.

 International Lab Meetings Series (2005-2008)

(next meeting: 28 august - 06 september 2006)

The European PhD International Lab Meetings, successor to the decade of International Summer Schools, provides an important opportunity for young researchers to obtain advanced academic and technical skills needed to conduct state-of-the-art research. Twelve ten days-long courses are organised around the theme of Social Representations in Action and Construction in Media and Society and focus on advanced practical training for 25 participants. The first two events each year integrate virtual and face-to-face sessions, aimed at training doctoral students in meta-theoretical analysis of the literature. The following one is face-to-face intensive training courses requiring the physical mobility of participants and open to long-term dissemination via web. These events share common objectives and have a didactic structure with multiple training opportunities for critical analysis of the link between multi-media communication systems and social representations. The methods, techniques, software packages and related method theory guiding applications in research design, will provide the unifying theme for each event of the proposed advanced courses. The topics developed in the participants' research projects presented and discussed during the workshops will provide a variety of societal issues mediated and constructed via traditional and new media. The program's originality is in its training methods, integrating face-to-face interaction (workshops, lectures, presentations) with mediated virtual interaction (Internet forum discussion, web-videoconferencing, streaming videos). Key lectures expand the horizon to other communication fields (semiotics, linguistics, sociology, mass communications, media studies etc.). The phenomena we cover (information society, new socialization and communication strategies and applications for politics, health, the environment, social minorities, gender, etc.) are clearly relevant to EU policy.

  List of International Summer Schools (1995-2004)