ESRS Summer School 2026

Hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Rīga Stradiņš University, the summer school supports participants in developing their research skills and exploring the social dimensions of rural digitalisation through an interdisciplinary lens.

Apply to the summer school by 19 April

About the Summer School

Digital technologies are increasingly shaping how rural communities organise services, manage resources, and imagine their futures. From artificial intelligence to digital platforms and data-driven governance tools, they are often presented as pathways toward more resilient and sustainable rural development. At the same time, digital transformation can also introduce new challenges — reinforcing inequalities, reshaping local practices, and creating tensions between technological solutions and social realities.

For researchers working on rural change, this creates a complex field of opportunities and uncertainties. The ESRS Summer School is designed to support participants in better understanding and working within this landscape, helping them to critically engage with the promises and limits of digitalisation and to develop research approaches that are attentive to its social dimensions.

What We Aim to Explore

The ESRS Doctoral Summer School 2026 invites doctoral students and early career researchers to critically engage with the social, methodological, and governance dimensions of rural digitalisation from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The programme brings together perspectives from fields such as sociology, geography, policy studies, innovation studies, and digital research in order to address shared challenges in studying rural digital change. These include questions of how qualitative findings can become meaningful beyond single case studies, how digital practices can be examined through methods such as digital ethnography, and how digitalisation is shaped through multi-actor processes and policy environments.

Participants will be invited to develop their own research ideas in dialogue with peers and mentors, with attention to issues such as transparency in qualitative research, the transferability of findings, and the social implications of digital transformation in rural contexts.

Key Addressed in the Summer School

Participants will engage with questions related to local innovation ecosystems, participatory governance, sustainability transitions, and the everyday practices through which digitalisation takes shape in rural contexts. Particular attention will be given to how digital transformation unfolds beyond large-scale technological investments, including within small enterprises, community initiatives, and local networks.

The programme will also create space for epistemological reflection on how research findings travel across contexts. Participants will be invited to consider what locally grounded insights mean beyond the specific settings in which they emerge, and how qualitative research can be made analytically transparent and relevant to broader debates.

This includes attention to methodological questions such as how to work with findings in ways that avoid isolated case-based conclusions and instead contribute to comparative and transferable understanding. Issues of transparency and interpretative robustness will be explored alongside opportunities for peer mentoring and research-focused supervision.

Participants will engage with approaches such as digital ethnography and storytelling to examine how rural actors — including small businesses and community initiatives — use digital platforms in their everyday practices. In doing so, the programme will highlight how digitalisation often develops through accessible and socially embedded pathways, rather than solely through large-scale technological investments.

The summer school will explore how digital processes are built in practice, including through participatory and multi-actor collaborations that bring together local knowledge, institutional frameworks, and technological expertise. This also opens questions about the role of digitalisation within rural governance and development strategies, and how policy environments shape the space for digital innovation.

Finally, the programme will invite critical reflection on the transformative claims associated with digitalisation. Participants will explore preliminary outcomes and impacts of digital change in rural areas and consider what the social sciences can meaningfully contribute to understanding not only what digitalisation does, but why and for whom it matters.

Location & Practical Information

The summer school will take place at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Rīga Stradiņš University, 9c Kuldīgas iela, Rīga, Latvia, from 6 to 10 July 2026.

Participation in the summer school is free of charge and no participation fee will be required. The costs of accommodation and lunches during the summer school will be covered by the organisers.

Participants are expected to arrange and cover their own travel to and from Rīga.

Who Should Apply

Applications are open to doctoral students and early career researchers whose work engages with rural change, digitalisation, governance, sustainability, innovation, or the social implications of technological transformation.

In particular, the summer school may be of interest to those working on topics such as:

• transferability of qualitative research findings and transparency in research
• digital ethnography, netnography, and digital storytelling
• digitalisation in small-scale rural enterprises and communities
• participatory approaches to digital innovation in rural contexts
• the role of digitalisation in rural governance and policy
• the social impacts and transformative potential of digitalisation
• methodological approaches to studying digital practices