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99 ERC SES 05 P: Belonging, and Transformation in Higher Education
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99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper Navigating Higher Education Amid Political Upheaval: Student Experiences in Myanmar University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Presenting Author:Five years after the military coup, Myanmar’s higher education continues to be entangled in political upheaval, where it is marked by frequent university closures, militarisation, heightened surveillance and restrictions on academic freedom (Rahmat et al., 2026). Despite the ongoing risk of arrest and persecution, many university students remain involved in the anti-coup movement, from boycotting the state-controlled public universities to engaging in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDA) to joining pro-democracy forces (Waa, 2022). Meanwhile, the military junta, confronted with such defiance as well as the growing defeats against the ethnic insurgents and pro-democracy forces (Simpson, 2024), has implemented mandatory military service, forcibly conscripting young men and women nationwide. These realities impose several challenges on students’ higher education pursuits. Yet, the weight of these challenges is uneven. Students experiencing intersecting vulnerabilities, such as ethnic minorities, socio-economic disadvantage, conflict exposure and/or anti-coup political affliction, are often at a heightened risk of exclusion from higher education. Against this backdrop, this paper asks: How do students, particularly those from marginalised and politically active backgrounds, from Myanmar navigate exclusion to pursue and re-imagine higher education amid political upheaval? Instead of relegating political instability to the background, this paper explores how it plays an instrumental role in determining students’ educational trajectories, choices, and opportunities. It also focuses not only on higher education access, but on what conditions are needed for meaningful participation to materialise in times of crisis.
Theoretically, the paper draws on Hill Collins’s (2019) concept of intersectionality, approaching it as a lens that informs interpretation rather than prescribes analysis. Here, intersectionality not only looks at how multiple social identities such as race, gender and ethnicity overlap to exacerbate social inequalities but foregrounds how power functions through interlocking systems of oppression to penalise some individuals while privileging others. In Myanmar, Hill Collins’s concept of intersectionality problematises a homogenous view of exclusion to better understand how the military coup and its aftermath in Myanmar converge with existing inequalities along the lines of gender, ethnicity, and digital divide, among others, to create disparities in higher education opportunities for students. Of particular importance is how her theoretical lens sheds light on exclusion within access. Being able to access non-state alternative higher education programmes does not guarantee meaningful participation for all students because of the convergence of different structural conditions, such as conflict exposure, digital connectivity, and forced displacement.
To understand how these dynamics materialise on the ground, the paper uses two complementary qualitative research methods. First, the open-ended online survey explores the rationales, experiences, and challenges of the wider student population across state-controlled public universities, private institutions and non-state alternative higher education pathways. The survey provides a contextual backdrop to understand whether political concerns and meanings surfaced across the general student body. Insights from the survey then inform the follow-up semi-structured interviews to unpack how students narrate their educational journeys, political engagement, and their plans amid ongoing conflict.
Insights from this paper, albeit not framed as a comparative account, resonate beyond Myanmar, contributing to international debates on higher education under conditions of oppression, geopolitical tensions, conflict, and authoritarian governance. Such conditions can be witnessed across several countries, including parts of Europe, raising questions about access, inclusion, institutional fragility, and student agency in times of crisis. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The paper employed a two-phase qualitative research design. The first phase involved an open-ended online survey, which was distributed to students across different higher education pathways. The survey, offered in both Burmese and English, was composed of a demographic section and four open-ended components to explore the rationales, experiences, aspirations, and challenges of the wider student body. Doing research in a context-affected necessitates careful consideration of the risks to both my participants’ safety and my own as a researcher from Myanmar. Since the 2021 military coup, the junta has relied on the 505(A) penal code to criminalise anyone who expresses political opinions critical of the military junta (Human Rights Watch, 2021). Yet disentangling students' higher education experiences from the broader political landscape would undermine, and even distort, their living realities. Hence, the survey questions did not feature direct political topics but were framed in a way that gave students the opportunity to talk about them. To reach students pursuing different higher education routes in a politically repressive context, snowballing sampling was used (Bryman, 2012), yielding a total of 270 responses. Insights from the survey then became a contextual backdrop for more in-depth inquiry through online semi-structured interviews. For this second phase, I used purposive sampling (Braun & Clarke, 2013), where I reached out to trusted networks to recruit 20 participants who are from marginalised and politically active backgrounds, either pursuing private or alternative non-state higher education pathways. Such a recruitment strategy is essential to engage with politically sensitive experiences while prioritising the safety of everyone involved. I had an approximately one-hour semi-structured interview with each participant, where we delved into three key topics: (i) their backgrounds and educational journeys before the 2021 military coup; (ii) their ongoing struggles and experiences of pursuing higher education; (iii) their aspirations and plans. Both survey and interview data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021), which outlined six phases: (i) Familiarisation with the data, (ii) Coding, (iii) Generating initial themes, (iv) Reviewing themes, (v) Defining and naming themes, and (vi) Writing up. Every phase, as suggested by Bruan and Clarke (2021), was not followed in a rigid manner. Instead, themes were consciously coded, interpreted, and constructed with respect to the wider socio-political landscape. Throughout the process, I remained reflexive about my positionality and theoretical underpinning. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The survey findings underscore the challenges emerging from the experiences of the wider student body: financial hardship, job insecurity, concerns about personal safety, and future uncertainty. Among those attending non-state higher education pathways, these challenges were further compounded by internet issues, fear of getting arrested, and forced displacement. Of particular interest is how several political remarks were observed from students’ accounts, including those from state-controlled universities, despite the survey not probing direct political questions. Interview findings echo these survey accounts but offer a deeper insight into how marginalised and politically active students navigate exclusion to pursue higher education amid conflict, forced displacement and military surveillance. Students shared pursuing education while always on the move to evade arrest, continuing studies online while staying hidden following the arrest warrants, as well as juggling academic workload alongside the ongoing resistance movement. Those attending private institutions shared their financial concerns and debts, which coincided with fears of getting arrested and persecuted because of their political involvement. In the stories they reflected on, higher education opportunities were noted as fragile and limited. Noteworthy is to point out how exclusion resides within access. With the emergence of non-state alternative higher education pathways, students gain more access to higher education. Yet, those who benefit most often come from relatively privileged positions. Meaningful participation of those at the periphery remains constrained by a combination of digital divides, conflict exposure and safety concerns, underscoring structural intersectionality. Across the survey and interview findings, higher education was described not only as a space to obtain credentials but, for many, as an act of survival and resistance. Through these findings, the paper contributes to an international dialogue on student agency and higher education in times of crisis. It also offers methodological and ethical insights for conducting research in fragile and conflict-affected settings. References Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. Sage. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. Bryman, A. (2012). Social research methods (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. Hill Collins, P. (2019). Intersectionality as critical social theory. Duke University Press. Human Rights Watch. (2021). Myanmar: Post-Coup Legal Changes Erode Human Rights. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/02/myanmar-post-coup-legal-changes-erode-human-rights Rahmat, R. B., Porta, T., & Thwe Phyo, K. (2026). The role of the higher education educator in times of conflict in Myanmar. Teaching in Higher Education, 31(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2025.2512334 Simpson, A. (2024). Myanmar’s junta has suffered a humiliating military defeat. Could it be a turning point in the war? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/myanmars-junta-has-suffered-a-humiliating-military-defeat-could-it-be-a-turning-point-in-the-war-236142 Waa, N. S. P. (2022, January 28). Universities, professors and students still under attack. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2022012812432689 99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper From Access to Academic Participation: Early Narrative Insights from Refugee-Background University Students in South Korea University of Turku, Korea, Republic of (South Korea) Presenting Author:This paper explores how refugee-background students narrate their educational trajectories and negotiate their identities within higher education. While existing research has extensively documented structural barriers related to access, language, and institutional inclusion, less attention has been paid to how refugee-background students themselves experience university and make sense of their academic journeys over time. This study addresses this gap by foregrounding students’ narratives and examining identity as an ongoing, situated process through which meanings and self-understandings are negotiated. The central research question guiding the study is: How do refugee-background students narrate their educational trajectories and negotiate their identities within higher education? More specifically, the study examines how students construct continuity and change across their educational lives, and how they position themselves in relation to academic expectations, institutional encounters, and everyday experiences within university settings. The study has two main objectives. First, it aims to develop an in-depth understanding of refugee-background students’ lived experiences in higher education by attending closely to their own narratives rather than externally defined indicators of success such as access or academic achievement. Second, it adopts a layered narrative approach that brings together extended life history accounts and event-centred narratives, enabling attention to both broader educational trajectories and specific moments in which identities are negotiated in practice. The study is grounded in life history research in education, which understands higher education experiences as part of longer educational journeys shaped by migration, disrupted schooling, language learning, and transitions across education systems. Within this framework, the study draws selectively on small stories and narrative positioning as analytical tools to examine how identities are negotiated within specific narrated events. This layered narrative approach allows movement between extended educational trajectories and moments where identity negotiation becomes visible through educational practices, such as classroom participation, assessment experiences, or interactions with institutional actors. While the broader research project has an international and comparative orientation, this paper focuses exclusively on the Korean case to develop early analytical insights. Beginning with in-depth analysis in one national context provides a grounded basis for examining how refugee-background students experience and make sense of higher education, while also informing the subsequent extension of the study to other higher education contexts. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The study adopts a qualitative narrative research design, with life history interviews as the primary method of data collection. Life history interviews are used to elicit extended narratives that allow participants to recount their educational trajectories in their own terms, with particular attention to experiences of access, academic participation and interaction, and senses of belonging within higher education. Participants are refugee-background students who are currently enrolled in or have completed higher education. The initial dataset comprises two participants interviewed in South Korea. Further interviews with refugee-background students in South Korea are planned as part of the ongoing data collection. From late 2026, the study will extend to include interviews with refugee-background students in Finnish higher education. This phased sampling strategy reflects the study’s exploratory design and its interest in understanding educational inclusion across different higher education contexts. Interviews are semi-structured and open-ended, encouraging participants to shape their narratives while allowing space for follow-up questions related to academic experiences, institutional encounters, and moments of comfort or distance within university life. Ethical considerations are central to the research design. Participation is voluntary, informed consent is obtained, pseudonyms are used, and participants are not required to disclose traumatic experiences unless they choose to do so. Data analysis follows a layered narrative approach. In the first stage, each interview is analyzed holistically to identify key phases, transitions, and recurring patterns across the educational trajectory. In the second stage, selected event-centered narratives are analyzed using narrative positioning concepts, focusing on how participants position themselves and others within specific academic and social encounters. Reflexive memos are used as integral analytic resources to account for interactional dynamics that are not fully visible in interview transcripts alone. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Based on the initial analysis of two life history interviews with refugee-background university students in South Korea, this study presents early but analytically meaningful insights into how educational trajectories and identities are narrated within higher education. Despite the small and ongoing dataset, the depth of the interviews allows attention to how identity negotiation unfolds over time and within academic experiences. Tracing Coherence and Tension in Educational Narratives Participants generally narrate their educational trajectories as coherent life histories, positioning themselves as learners who have navigated disrupted pathways. However, analysis of specific academic encounters—such as classroom participation, assessment, and interactions with institutional actors—reveals moments where this coherence becomes unstable. In these contexts, confidence and uncertainty, competence and perceived insufficiency coexist, indicating that identity negotiation continues within everyday academic practices. Ways of Narrating and Interpreting Challenge in Academic Contexts Challenging experiences are typically narrated in pragmatic and forward-looking terms. Participants describe ongoing judgement and adjustment in deciding when to participate, how to interpret implicit assessment expectations, and how to position themselves in interactions with faculty or peers. These narratives emphasise decision-making and adaptation within evaluative academic environments and are treated as emerging patterns given the ongoing data collection. Academic access, success, and experiences of belonging These findings complicate assumptions that access or achievement leads to a stable sense of belonging. Rather than being articulated directly, belonging emerges indirectly through accounts of reduced pressure, familiarity, or comfort within particular university relationships or situations, suggesting that belonging is recognised gradually over time. Overall, these preliminary observations highlight the value of a layered narrative approach for examining refugee-background students’ experiences of higher education beyond externally defined measures of academic success. References Baker, S., Ramsay, G., Irwin, E., & Miles, L. (2018). ‘Hot’, ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ supports: Towards theorising where refugee students go for assistance at university. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(1), 1–16. Bamberg, M. (2006). Stories: Big or small: Why do we care? Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 139–147. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.16.1.18bam Bamberg, M. (2011). Who am I? Narration and its contribution to self and identity. Theory & Psychology, 21(1), 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354309355852 Bamberg, M., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. Text & Talk, 28(3), 377–396. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2008.018 Earnest, J., Joyce, A., De Mori, G., & Silvagni, G. (2010). Are universities responding to the needs of students from refugee backgrounds? Australian Journal of Education, 54(2), 155–174. Goodson, I. (2012). Developing narrative theory: Life histories and personal representation. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203817704 Goodson, I., & Sikes, P. (2001). Life history research in educational settings: Learning from lives. Open University Press. Harvey, A., & Mallman, M. (2019). Beyond cultural capital: Understanding the strengths of new migrants within higher education. Policy Futures in Education, 17(5), 657–673. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210318822180 Lambrechts, A. (2020). The super-disadvantaged in higher education: Barriers to access for refugee background students in England. Higher Education, 80(5), 803–822. Lee, H., & Howe, B. (2023). Providing access to higher education for refugees: Comparative analysis and policy recommendations for South Korea. International Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, 19(2), 195–231. https://doi.org/10.21315/ijaps2023.19.2.8 99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper “It’s what we have always wanted”: First-in-Family Participation in Higher Education as a Relational and Intergenerational Educational Process University of Surrey, United Kingdom Presenting Author:Sociological research on first-in-family (FiF) participation in higher education has consistently demonstrated that access to and experiences of higher education are socially patterned, shaped by classed inequalities, institutional cultures, and uneven distributions of economic, social, and cultural resources. Across national contexts, FiF students are more likely to encounter institutional opacity, feelings of misrecognition, and uneven access to informal knowledge about higher education. Much of this literature, however, has centred the individual student as the primary unit of analysis, with families positioned as background influences, constraints, or sites of limited cultural capital. While this body of work has been vital in challenging meritocratic assumptions and deficit narratives about participation, it has paid comparatively little attention to how higher education participation is collectively experienced, negotiated, and sustained within families over time. This study addresses this gap through the central research question: How do first-in-family students and their immediate families experience higher education as a relational and intergenerational process? Rather than conceptualising participation as an individual educational transition, the research examines how higher education becomes embedded within family relationships, reshaping roles, expectations, responsibilities, and identities. It explores how FiF students share, translate, and mediate their experiences of higher education with immediate family members, and how families respond to, support, and make sense of participation in the absence of prior institutional familiarity. In doing so, the study foregrounds participation as a process that unfolds relationally, across generations, and within everyday family life. The project is situated within the sociology of education and draws on theoretical perspectives concerned with class, inequality, institutional habitus, aspiration, and belonging. It builds on Bourdieusian analyses of how educational institutions privilege particular forms of knowledge, confidence, and cultural familiarity, while also engaging with more recent scholarship that examines lived experiences of participation, identity formation, and belonging in higher education. The study extends this work by shifting analytical attention from the individual student to the family as a relational site in which educational meanings are produced, negotiated, and sustained. Families are conceptualised not as passive contexts but as active participants in educational trajectories, undertaking significant emotional, relational, and practical labour to support participation. The research also engages critically with widening participation discourses that emphasise individual aspiration, choice, and resilience. While such frameworks have been influential across European higher education systems, they often obscure the relational conditions that shape participation and persistence. By foregrounding emotional and relational labour within families, the study challenges deficit-oriented framings of FiF families and highlights the collective work that underpins access to higher education. This theoretical framing enables a more nuanced understanding of how inequality is reproduced and contested through everyday family practices. The European and international relevance of the study lies in its contribution to comparative debates on widening participation, social mobility, and educational inequality across massified higher education systems. Despite variation in national policy contexts, European widening participation agendas frequently rely on individualised models of participation that assume independent navigation of complex institutional systems. By examining FiF participation as a relational and intergenerational process, this research offers a framework that is transferable across national contexts and sensitive to differing welfare, education, and family regimes. It contributes to broader sociological debates on transition, belonging, and inequality, and demonstrates the value of family-centred qualitative approaches for understanding participation in higher education within Europe and beyond. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The study adopts a qualitative research design informed by interpretive phenomenological approaches, enabling in-depth exploration of how first-in-family (FiF) participation in higher education is experienced and made meaningful within family contexts. The design is particularly suited to examining relational, emotional, and intergenerational dimensions of educational participation, even where accounts are generated through individual interviews. Data are generated through semi-structured individual interviews with a total sample of fifty participants (n = 50). This includes fourteen family groupings in which a FiF student and at least one immediate family member (parent/guardian, sibling, or child) participated, alongside additional FiF students who were interviewed individually and reflected on their own experiences in relation to their families. All interviews were conducted on an individual basis. This approach was adopted to ensure participants could speak freely about family relationships and experiences, and in recognition of the practical and ethical challenges associated with recruiting multiple family members. Recruitment of parents and siblings proved challenging, reflecting wider patterns of limited engagement with higher education research among families unfamiliar with university contexts. Rather than treating this as a limitation, the study incorporates FiF students’ reflective accounts of family relationships and dynamics as a complementary source of insight into how higher education participation is understood and negotiated within families. The analytic strategy combines two complementary approaches operating at different levels of analysis. First, interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) is used to analyse the fourteen family groupings as singular analytic units. This stage focuses on how higher education participation is collectively experienced and interpreted within families by examining points of convergence, divergence, and relational meaning-making across linked family accounts. Findings from this analysis are presented in a dedicated chapter that foregrounds family-level experiences of higher education. Second, thematic network analysis is applied across the full dataset at the level of individual participants. This enables systematic identification of patterns across accounts and supports movement from basic themes to organising and global themes, situating individual experiences within wider sociological debates on class, education, and inequality. The combination of these approaches allows the study to capture both collective family processes and individual experiences of participation. Ethical considerations are central to the research design. Individual interviews support confidentiality and emotional safety when discussing sensitive topics such as inequality, wellbeing, and family relationships. Ethical approval has been obtained, and reflexive practices are embedded throughout data generation and analysis. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings This study is expected to demonstrate that first-in-family participation in higher education is not solely an individual educational transition but a relational process shaped by family relationships, meanings, and responsibilities. While higher education is formally undertaken by the student, findings are anticipated to show that participation is experienced and interpreted in relation to family histories, expectations, and emotional dynamics. Analysis of the fourteen family groupings is expected to illustrate how higher education becomes a shared family project, reshaping roles, responsibilities, and understandings of education. Families are likely to be shown to collectively negotiate pride, aspiration, uncertainty, and strain, alongside the emotional and practical work required to support participation in the absence of inherited institutional familiarity. These findings foreground family-level processes that are often rendered invisible in individualised accounts of educational participation. Findings from the wider sample of first-in-family students are expected to complement this family-level analysis by demonstrating how students reflect on and interpret their higher education experiences in relation to their families, including where direct family participation was not possible. These accounts are anticipated to highlight practices of translation, mediation, and sense-making through which students manage institutional demands while maintaining family relationships and identities. At a theoretical level, the study is expected to contribute to the sociology of education by reconceptualising first-in-family participation as a relational and intergenerational process, extending analyses of institutional habitus beyond the individual student and foregrounding emotional and relational labour as central dimensions of educational participation and mobility. At a policy level, the findings are expected to challenge widening participation frameworks that rely on individualised assumptions, highlighting the need for more relationally informed approaches that better recognise the family contexts within which educational transitions are embedded. References Archer, L., Hutchings, M. and Ross, A. (2003) Higher Education and Social Class: Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion. London: Routledge Falmer. Attride‑Stirling, J. (2001) ‘Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research’. Qualitative Research, 1(3), pp. 385–405. Bourdieu, P. (1997) ‘The forms of capital’. In: Halsey, A.H., Lauder, H., Brown, P. and Wells, A.S. (eds.) Education: Culture, Economy, Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 46–58. Brooks, R. (2008) ‘Accessing higher education: The influence of cultural and social capital on university choice’. Sociology Compass, 2(4), pp. 1355–1371. Brooks, R. (2018) Higher Education Mobilities: A Cross‑National European Perspective. London: Palgrave Macmillan. O’Shea, S. (2016) ‘Avoiding the manufacture of “sameness”: First‑in‑family students, cultural capital and higher education’. Higher Education, 72(1), pp. 59–78. O’Shea, S., Lysaght, P., Roberts, J. and Harwood, V. (2016) ‘Shifting the blame in higher education – social inclusion and deficit discourses’. Higher Education Research & Development, 35(2), pp. 322–336. Reay, D. (2004) ‘‘It’s all becoming a habitus’: Beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), pp. 431–444. Reay, D., Crozier, G. and Clayton, J. (2010) ‘‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: Working‑class students in UK higher education’. British Educational Research Journal, 36(1), pp. 107–124. Smith, J.A., Flowers, P. and Larkin, M. (2009) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Theory, Method and Research. London: SAGE. 99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Paper In Search for Alignment in Cross-Border and Cross-Sector Educational Innovation University of Southern Denmark, Denmark Presenting Author:STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education has long been of strategic importance in European countries, and this status has been further reinforced by the European Commission’s 2025 document A STEM Education Strategic Plan: skills for competitiveness and innovation (EU, 2025). This strategic plan seeks to foster national, regional and European-level efforts by positioning STEM education as the strategic pillar in the EU education and skills policy. How do the border regions of Denmark and Germany answer these calls? How does the strategic European-level need for STEM specialists shape understandings of the purpose of school? STEM industry represents a multitude of the voices of Biesta & Säfström describe as “educational customers” (Biesta & Säfström, 2023) that are in need of certain skills and competencies. Competence-based education, which often underpins responses industry and workforce demands, is extensively criticized by Moretti and Marabini (2025), for not delivering to their promise to develop the needed skills, for an atomistic view on education, and, crucially, that it perpetuates the existing patterns in the society, and does not sufficiently provide space for critical reflection, transformation and the pursuit for meaningful life. As an alternative, collaborative models based on the quadruple helix (Leydesdorff, 2012) offer a framework for facilitating local ecosystems that bring together for co-creation several sectors: education and research, industry, policy, and the society. This transforms the instrumental way of seeing school, and empowers the two-way or multi-way value creation between society and school, a need emphasized by Biesta (2019). However, the logistics and varying agendas can be challenging in these settings. The research presented here draws on data generated in the Interreg Germany-Denmark project STEPS which aims to address regional labour shortages by developing education activities for STEM subjects, grounded on authentic industry contexts. Through these educational materials, vocational aspects of potential careers are introduced. In addition, there are added STEM-related aspects of culture and language, to address the Danish-German cross-border cultural learning and potential barriers for mobility. Within this setting of educational innovation and development, complex interplays of different contexts, agendas and terminologies emerge. The issue of alignment, cross-sector and cross-border communication through competing agendas is important. This presentation analyses clashing narratives encountered in collaborative innovation, and examines the analytical framing of educational materials, to address the demand for STEM specialists, and to contribute to personal and civic formation, Bildung and the more holistic purposes of education.
Research questions:
The study is grounded in theories of Bildung (Humboldt, 1793/2000; Kivelä, 2018; Klafki, 2000), vocational aspects (Dewey, 2018), the three dimensions of the purpose of education by Biesta (2020, 2022), and the concept of professional Bildung (Hammershøj, 2017). It builds on previous analysis highlighting a particular Nordic context in which teachers strongly identify Bildung as inseparable dimension in STEM education (Characiejiene et al., Accepted), also echoing the work by Sjöström et al. (2017). Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The presentation offers analysis and insights from the ongoing educational development process, framed as Design-Based Research (DBR) (Bannan-Ritland, 2003; Christensen & West, 2017) within the STEPS project. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the initial stages of the design process: exploration, problem identification, and the framing of design direction. These phases are informed by engagement with, on the one hand, theoretical foundations outlined above, and, on the other hand, the analysis of data generated through participatory processes, and initial design iterations. Data are generated by qualitative methods, including qualitative interviews (Brinkmann, 2023), focus groups and dialogical workshops involving project partners, educators, industry partners and other stakeholders in Denmark and Germany. Additional data sources include field notes, meeting documentation, collaborative rapid prototyping, curriculum analysis and feedback on the developed educational material iterations. Through this participatory data generation process, perspectives of several stakeholder groups are captured, including teachers, industry representatives, researchers (developers), local policy makers and experts in STEM education and school-industry collaboration. The data are analysed using thematic analysis (Kushnir, 2025). In addition to the participatory research component, the thematic analysis of national/regional and EU policy documents is conducted, to address research question 2. The study is a work in progress, that informs the subsequent development, testing and communication processes, as well as anchoring of impact within local and extended contexts (Henriksen & Ejsing-Duun, 2022). These methodological approaches are in line with the overarching research focus of the PhD thesis, that aims to capture and bridge the perspectives of different stakeholders in STEM education. In the participatory research methodology, the role of an engaged researcher (Balslev, 2012) is enacted, and the stakeholders – as participants in a triple-helix model (Leydesdorff, 2012) of collaborative innovation process in the project. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings This study is a work in progress, and the empirical analysis is ongoing. The research is expected to contribute with insights into the early phases of educational innovation and cross-sector collaboration within an international project context. The analysis will result in implications for both educational development and cross-border collaboration. Tentative findings indicate that teachers connect with the concept of Bildung, notions of academic well-being, and the use real-world contexts that industries can provide. At the same time, their understandings on their role in professional orientation through STEM subjects appear to be contested and negotiated. Preliminary analysis further suggests that in local collaboration contexts, industry actors also approach school-related engagement as also taking the stance of Bildung perspective, and emphasizing character qualities such as courage and curiosity. The importance of situatedness of local collaborative ecosystems, as well as the role of cross-sector facilitators, is an emerging theme that is important to address educational innovation. These actors appear to play an important role in mediating between different agendas, terminologies and expectations across sectors. This work contributes to the efforts to reclaim Bildung in education, originating from German-Nordic contexts, but increasingly extended to broader contexts (Tahirsylaj et al., 2025). In addition, it contributes to research in the field of collaborative innovation in STEM by illuminating the dynamics of cross-sector and cross-border partnerships. References Balslev, G. M. (2012). Samskabelse af forhandlet viden: Engaged scholarship som forskning med praksis. Bannan-Ritland, B. (2003). The role of design in research: The integrative learning design framework. Educational researcher, 32(1), 21-24. Brinkmann, S. (2023). 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