From June 12 to June 17, the fifth Joint PhD Training School will take place in Florence under the title “The Renaissance of Local Government – European Communities in Transition”. It is jointly funded by the University of Florence (Research Center “Political and Social Sciences and the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence”), the COST action “Local Public Sector Reforms” (LocRef), the municipality of Florence, the Tuscany unit of the Italian National Municipal Association ANCITOSCANA) and the ECPR / LOGOPOL and EURA Summer School Cooperation. The application period ends on 10 April. Call for applications with the most important information here.

Photos from the 4th COST ‘LocRef’ PhD Training School in Potsdam, Germany, are now online and can be found in a photo gallery.

The results of a survey among the participants of the PhD Training School in Spetses (13.09.-17.09.2015) are now available under the Spetses Paper Room in our PhD-Platform or [here].

Photos from the 3rd COST ‘LocRef’ PhD Training School in Spetses, Greece, are now online and can be found in a photo gallery.

After receiving more than 40 applications 28 PhD students (including 24 grantees) from 17 different countries in total will participate in our Training School in Spetses, Greece. They will be trained by 9 Trainers during the 5 days.

The final program and further instructions regarding the content (presentations, paper room etc.) will be delivered after the summer break (first week in September). The local organizers of the Training School, Prof. Panagiotis Getimis and Prof. Nikos Hlepas will inform the participants shortly about the logistics and practicalities.

The 3rd COST Action “LocRef” PhD Training School will take place in Spetses, Greece from September 13 -17, 2015 and is dedicated to the theme “Innovation in Local Government”. The Training School is organized by the University of Athens, the EUROLOC and EURA Summer School cooperation and the COST Action IS1207 “Local Public Sector Reforms: An International Comparison (LocRef).” Local organizers are Prof. Dr. Nikos Hlepas and Prof. Dr. Panagiotis Getimis. Our cooperation partners from EURA/EUROLOC are Prof. Dr. Kristof Steyvers and Prof. Dr. Henk van der Kolk.

You can find the call for applications here.

The results of a survey among the participants of the PhD Training School in Siena (29.09.-02.10.2014) are now available under the Siena sub-menu in our PhD-Platform or [here].

You can find some impressions of the PhD Training School in Siena in our photo gallery.

For the upcoming PhD Training School in Siena (29.09.-02.10.2014) you can find the latest version of the program [here].

The application deadline for the second COST Action ’LocRef‘ joint PhD-Training School expired yesterday. We received almost 60 applications from 24 countries for participation and the announced 24 available grants. This proves the high interest in our Training-School. The reviewing process will take approximately 2 weeks. Thereafter, a paper room with required readings & student contributions will be established.