Vesna Holubek

I am a grant-funded researcher and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University. 

The grant-supported research relates to an interdisciplinary research project called ‘(Un)making Knowledge: students’ relationship with knowledge from Modernity to AI’ funded by the Kone Foundation (2025-2029).

As a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Programme of Education and Society (Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University), I research cultures and discourses in transnational higher education. The research focuses on discursively constructed teaching and learning cultures in the context of pedagogical development programmes in Palestinian, Brazilian, and Thai universities; the programmes were organised through transnational collaboration with a Finnish 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, organisational cultures, digitalisation and online education. 

Previously I taught university pedagogy courses for university teachers at Tampere University, ‘Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’ (KAS.PEY.010) & ‘Academic supervision and guidance’ (KAS.PEY.030) and several courses related to educational sciences.     

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