The dates for the next ANGEL (Academic Network for Global Education and Learning) conference in 2026 were just announced. Thus, this is a perfect timing to finally share some memories from the last conference organised in Berlin in June 2025.
This was my third time participating in an ANGEL conference, the previous ones being an online conference for Early Career Researchers during the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020, at the beginning of my PhD thesis project (see previous blog post), and the previous ANGEL conference held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in 2023. This meant that there were quite a few familiar faces already among the nearly 269 participants who attended the conference in presence in Berlin.
Based on the programme that I attended, themes and questions around global education were relatively similar as in Paris two years before. Sustainability, democracy, and peace as themes, with a particular focus on the value of research for policymaking were stressed. For those interested to see more details on the topics and presentations, the full programme is still available on the ANGEL website. Also the conference report with photos and links to keynote speeches is out: https://angel-network.net/ANGEL_CON25_Report. It is a happy surprise to see how the report highlights the active presence of Finnish researchers in the conference. Finland ranked as sixth for the number of participants in the conference, and as fourth for the number of paper submissions for the conference just after Germany, UK and Spain.
As usual, most of my photos from conferences are of different presentations, with a few quickly taken photos of colleagues at the end of the conference before everyone has to run for their different transportation back home. I was able to stay for a few days with my own expense in Berlin, before continuing to another conference in Denmark, conveniently reachable by train.
Among the most memorable moments for me personally was the day organised for, and by the ANGEL sub-network day for Early Career Researchers before the actual conference. I also presented on my PhD research on this day (titled “Vocational students: politically disengaged or just forgotten global citizens?”), and was part of the team putting the day’s programme together. Some of us continued for an informal dinner and drinks afterwards. The main conference programe also included special slots reserved for early career researchers such in the final panel discussion where Yuemiao Ma and Cheng-Hui Liu shared their reflections of the conference.
Another definite highlight was the keynote by New Zealand’s former foreign minister, Nanaia Cybele Mahuta. For me, it was the most touching and humane moment in the entire conference. The keynote is available also on YouTube. Although I suspect it will be less powerful than listening to her in presence, I would still recommend watching it.
However, what stuck out at the end as the most unforgettable aspect from the conference was the global justice issue NOT discussed: the ongoing atrocities in Gaza. Only very few speakers in individual sessions brought this up. To some extent this was understandable as the conference was organised, and largely funded by the German government, which continues to support Israel in many ways despite the increasing number of reports by various actors on the committed human rights violations and genocidal acts by the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Public buildings, such as different city halls in Berlin supported Israel very visibly, as the photo below of Berlin’s Rotes Rathaus shows.
Nevertheless, such silence among researchers, practitioners and policymakers gathering for a large conference titled as “Research in Global Education and Learning: For Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability, and Global Social Justice” did feel even a bit surreal. This erasure of Palestine in the conference programme produced perhaps the most significant impact in my thinking, and also my own posititioning in the field of global citizenship education. After the conference, this observation of the evident challenge in the global citizenship education sector at large to even talk about the genocide in Gaza has spurred first discussions, and then thoughts for action with a few of the early career researchers involved in the field across Europe. We are particularly inspired by the debate started by the Irish global education sector in the journal Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review right after the conflict escalated, continued recently in a blog post by the journal editor Stephen McCloskey.
Palestine/Israel did come up also in my PhD data when interviewing students in vocational education in the winter and spring of 2022-2023. Sometimes students brought up the question spontaneously in the interviews, sometimes I asked specifically whether it had been somehow addressed in their school (it had not been, this was the general response from students in three different schools and fields of study). In Finland, one of the few recently created resources for teachers that at least I am aware of is this teacher training and pedagogical material by the Finn Church Aid and EAPPI programme addressing the question of Palestine and Israel through human rights education. I would recommend Finnish speakers to take a look at this material which is freely available and according to Finn Church Aid, suitable for young people over the age of 15 years.
It will be interesting to see how and whether these silences in the global citizenship education field develop by the conference next year. Perhaps you are interested in knowing what are the dates for the next ANGEL conference to be held in Bologna? Mark your calendars for 10-11 September 2026! To stay updated on the call for abstracts and other news about the upcoming conference, join the ANGEL network. Of course we will also try to keep GERIF network posted through our newsletter which surely everyone already has subscribed to?
Text and photos:
Riikka Suhonen
Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki
Research portal │ Google Scholar │ LinkedIn
Co-chair of GERIF and co-creator of the ANGEL sub-network for Early Career Researchers
Disclaimer: The views expressed are solely mine and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of GERIF nor ANGEL.
Global Education Research in Finland (GERIF) 