Team BiWi at ECER 2026

From 17 to 21 August 2026, 3,800 educational researchers from 84 countries gathered at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), organised by the European Educational Research Association (EERA), at the University of Tampere in Finland. The Educational Sciences Group was strongly represented at this year’s conference, which had the theme ‘Knowing and Acting: The Changing Conditions and Potentials of Education Research’.

• Erna Nairz was once again played an active role as co-convenor of Network 22, ‘Research in Higher Education’. In addition, together with her collaborator Emanuel Tamir (Tel Hai Academic College, Israel), she presented the conceptual paper ‘Disrupted Distinction, Weakened Signals: Generative AI and the Changing Meaning of Academic Performance’. In it, the authors examined how generative AI is altering the significance of academic performance records as indicators of competence and what implications this might have for higher education institutions. The paper was presented in the session ‘AI and Digitalisation in HE’.

• Christian Gehart and Sophie Lehner presented, in the session ‘Student Experience and Institutional Cultures in Higher Education’, the results of a gender-focused analysis of data from the panel study ‘Non-traditional Students: Transition and Resilience’. Their paper was entitled “Students’ Intentions to Drop Out from University: Findings from a Student Panel Survey with a Special Focus on Gender Issues (2022–2023)”.

• Lisa-Maria Lukasser presented her systematic literature review entitled ‘Factors Shaping the Educational and Occupational Aspirations and Expectations of Adolescents’ in the session ‘International Mobility and the Negotiation of Educational and Career Futures’.

In addition to numerous inspiring presentations, ECER 2026 offered many opportunities for international exchange and new collaborations. We are already looking forward to ECER 2027 in Debrecen, Hungary.