Since 1995, the International Summer School of the European/International Joint PhD in Social Representations and Communication has been offering advanced training to young researchers in key areas of social psychology with wide applications in the public and private sectors on issues including the information society, science popularisation, new socialization and communication strategies, and applied research crucial to health, the environment, political life, social minorities, gender, etc. It has helped to reinforce the intellectual leadership of European Social Psychology and is now well established as a permanent European forum for disseminating state of the art research in this area. Systematic co-operation among European researchers remains one of the fundamental prerequisites for meeting the goals of the ERA and EHEA and the European/International Joint PhD's International Summer School has played and will continue to play an active role in promoting "internationalization" of European Higher Education, taking it beyond the walls of academia, and contributing to the diversity of experience for the trainees involved.
Target groups include research trainees enrolled in the European/International Joint PhD in S.R. & C., postgraduates and research trainees in other national PhD programmes, as well as special target groups with access difficulties, such as women, the disabled and researchers from less favoured EU regions who can profit from the ODL training system and the network's long-term after-event dissemination of multimedia products.
Summer school activities include face-to-face workshops, lectures, and presentations as well as mediated virtual events such as Internet forum discussions, web videoconferencing, and streaming videos. Important themes are discussed at individual, group and plenary levels on the same day, guaranteeing learning of unusual intensity and quality. Young researchers are assisted in making appointments to meet personally and discuss particular issues with guest speakers.