Description:
The course will stimulate participants to address and consider the dilemmas involved in developing, implementing, and evaluating intervention programs. The course will cover dilemmas related to needs assessment, target group categorizations, ethics, co-creation, partnerships, implementation, unintended outcomes, theory of science and paradigmatic tensions in combining research methods, and the double role of being a researcher and evaluator/intervention developer.
Participants:
The course is aimed at PhD students working with various aspects of intervention research —including needs assessment, intervention development, feasibility studies, process and effect evaluation, and implementation studies — as well as those applying critical, humanities- or social science-based approaches to examine nationally or locally initiated welfare initiatives such as health promotion programs, educational reforms, or social policy interventions. We welcome PhD students studying intervention programs within different research fields, sectors and topics and who use either quantitative methods, qualitative methods, or a combination of methods. The course is both relevant for new PhD students who may use the course proactively in planning their research activities and for PhD students midway or at the end of their studies as preparation for writing up the discussion section of their thesis.
Intended learning outcomes:
The course will:
1) provide the participants with a critical and productive awareness of dilemmas in intervention research
2) stimulate the participants to pose questions and reflect critically on the interventions they and other course participants are involved in and in this way scientifically strengthen their PhD projects
3) prepare the participants for writing selected parts of the discussion section of their thesis.
Teaching methods:
The course is taught in discussion-based lectures, small group work, plenary discussions, and exercises. The teachers will create a safe space for discussing doubts and dilemmas related to participants’ PhD projects and for embracing and exploring different positions and perspectives. The topics of the course are inspired by issues, dilemmas and doubts related to intervention and implementation research projects often brought up by PhD students in supervision sessions or encountered by the teaching team in the assessment of PhD theses.
Motivational letter
The course teachers will tailor the course to match the participants’ prerequisites, interests, and current challenges in their PhD projects. Please submit a short motivation (1-2 pages) including:
1) A description of the aim of your PhD project, the content of the intervention programme, key concepts and theoretical perspectives, methodological approach, and current stage in the PhD process.
2) Three topics and/or potential dilemmas that you would like the course to address (see the list of dilemmas at the beginning of the course description). For each topic or dilemma, please briefly explain why it is relevant to your PhD project and what you hope to gain from discussing it during the course.
The deadline for course registration, including submission of the motivational letter, is 7 June 2026. Please send your motivational letter to the course leader, Rikke Fredenslund Krølner (rikr@sdu.dk), no later than the registration deadline. Shortly after this deadline, she will inform you whether you have got a seat.
Course arrangement:
The course includes three components:
1) 3 full course days in one week (24-26 august 2027). The participants will be presented with different critical perspectives and dilemmas in intervention research and asked to reflect on these perspectives in relation to their own PhD studies or selected cases in groups.
2) an interim period of three weeks in which the participants work individually with a) preparing a paper to be submitted three days before the closing seminar and b) a brief oral presentation for the closing seminar where the participants highlight which new insights, questions, and critical reflections the topics presented during the course have inspired them to make in relation to their own research project.
3) a closing research seminar (23 September 2027) in which the participants present their critical reflections on their own project and receive peer- and teacher feedback.
To pass the course, participants will have three deliverables:
• Before the course: Submission of motivation and short description of PhD project in connection with course registration (2 pages, please remember to include your name in the document, and in the document name)
• Three weeks after the first three full course days: Submission of critical reflections on own PhD project based on take home points from the course (5 pages)
• Closing seminar: Student presentations and active participation in the discussion of other participants' presentations (peer feedback)
Literature
Literature will be uploaded on Itslearning, the platform for e-learning at University of Southern Denmark. In due time, participants will be informed via email that the platform for this seminar has been opened.
Social networking
To facilitate networking, we will organise a casual after-work drink in the afternoon of the first or second course day at the NIPH rooftop (participant fee).
Lecturers
Rikke Fredenslund Krølner, Senior Researcher, Head of Centre for Intervention and Implementation Research, SIF, SDU (course director)
Katrine Sidenius Duus, postdoc, SIF, SDU (course director)
Stine Kjær Wehner, Researcher, SIF, SDU
Christina Bjørk Petersen, Head of Section for Health Promotion and Prevention, CKFF, Region H.
The course is free of charge for PhD students enrolled in Universities that have joined the "Open market agreement" or NorDoc.
For other participants there is a course fee of
DKK 5100
EUR 683
[RK1]Ph.d.-skolen udfylder