The activities initiated and carried out within ESTIDIA have three main goals:
ESTIDIA facilitates dialogue and promotes collaboration across geographical, cultural and disciplinary borders in Europe and beyond. By initiating, organising and co-organising training courses, summer schools, meetings and events in different parts of Europe, it contributes to increasing awareness about linguistic and cultural diversity across borders, as well as within nation-state borders.
In true intercultural spirit, the languages used for presentations at various events are English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian, as well as other European languages, depending on the venue and the linguistic competence of a critical mass of participants.
ESTIDIA promotes cutting edge research and best practices in dialogue-based education, speaking and writing literacies, multilingual learning and transcultural curricula across the boundaries of disciplines and academic traditions. The goal is to stimulate training innovations and synergies within and across communities of scholars and practitioners, for the benefit of both junior and senior colleagues, as well as for the wider community in general. We aim to o share insights from research and experience, identifying common and different approaches and perspectives, successes and challenges.
ESTIDIA encourages the development of informal mentoring relationships whereby experienced professionals and practitioners share their insights and expertise with junior colleagues to help them grow and excel. Particular attention will be paid to improving critical thinking skills in connection with currently changing cultures of learning, communicating and socialising. With a view to assisting junior scholars with the preparation of MA theses or PhD dissertations, as well as with article submissions to international journals, special conference sessions will be devoted to work in progress where students and young researchers will have the opportunity to present their ongoing research projects and receive constructive feedback from senior scholars.
