Vesna Holubek

I am a higher education researcher and university instructor at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University.  

I teach university pedagogy courses for university teachers at Tampere University (‘Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’ & ‘Academic supervision and guidance’) and work on a pedagogical development project focusing on developing PhD supervision at Tampere University.

My research interests include a variety of topics in the field of higher education research (higher education studies): teaching and learning, knowledge and curriculum, pedagogical development, academic communities, internationalisation, transnational education, organisational cultures, digitalisation and online education.

I am a team member of the interdisciplinary research project called ‘(Un)making Knowledge: students’ relationship with knowledge from Modernity to AI’ funded by the Kone Foundation (2025-2029).

My PhD research explored teaching and learning cultures in transnational higher education by examining three cases of pedagogical development collaborations between a Finnish university and universities in Palestine, Brazil, and Thailand.

In my research and teaching activities, I work closely with my research group Higher Education in Transition (HET) as well as the Research Centre on Transnationalism and Transformation TRANSIT. Between February and June 2022, I was a visiting researcher at the Educational Research department at Lancaster University, UK. 

I graduated from the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) programme and obtained a joint degree M.Sc. (Admin) from University of Tampere in Finland and Danube University Krems in Austria. I have been active in multiple professional associations and scholarly societies and worked with non-governmental organisations.
 

Publications and research activities (link to TUNICRIS research portal) 

Currently

• Board member of the Tampere University Association of Researchers and Teachers TATTE (1.1.2021–31.12.2022; 1.1.2025–current)
• Board member of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in Finland CHERIF (2024–current)
• Coordinator of the Network of early-career higher education researchers in Finland (2023–current) 

Previously 

• Communication coordinator in the Higher Education in Transition (HET) research group (2020–2025)
• Member of the Faculty Council in the Faculty of Education and Culture (1.8.2021–31.12.2022)
• Member of the Education Steering Group in the Faculty of Education and Culture; representing PhD researchers (20.2.2019–31.7.2020)

• Internationalisation in higher education   
• Teaching and learning in higher education 
• Pedagogical/academic development
• Knowledge and curriculum in higher education
• Communities in academic spaces   
• Teaching and learning cultures & Organisational cultures 
• Digitalisation and online education 
• Poststructuralist discourse analysis 
• Qualitative research approaches