Participant profile

Doctoral students of the UPV/EHU

Calendar

Biscay Campus: January-February 2026

Duration / Timetable

10 hours (three 3.20h classes run over 3 weeks)

Time: 14:30 to 17:50

Attendance Requirement

Students will be expected to attend 100% of the classes together with submission of all practical work assignments (see points 3 and 5 of the Basic regulations for participation in transversal training activities organised by the Doctoral School).

ALL ABSENCES must be justified with supporting documentation.

Language

English

Modality

Face-to-face

Pre-requisites

This course is directed mainly to Social Sciences and Humanities students, but also to those whose research involves a greater or lesser acknowledgement of their interaction with other human beings. However, the course does not require prior knowledge of any specific theory/methodology, but rather curiosity and eagerness to work and embrace one’s limitations and possibilities when doing research.

Location and dates

Teacher

Jon Las Heras is Profesor Agregado (Senior Lecturer) at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of the Basque Country and obtained his PhD in Politics in 2017 from The University of Manchester. Jon’s research focuses on critical and political theory, labour sociology, critical management studies, political economy and human geography. He has published in multiple international academic journals and is director, editor and special guest editor of various peer-reviewed journals such as: Work, Employment and Society, Labor History, GIZAEKOA and Lan Harremanak.

Group size

20

Registration

Competences to be acquired by the doctoral student (Royal Decree 99/2011)

• a) Systematic understanding of a field of study and mastery of research skills and methods related to that field.
• b) Ability to conceive, design or create, implement and adopt a substantial process of research or creation.
• c) Ability to contribute to the expansion of the frontiers of knowledge through original research.
• e) Ability to communicate with the academic and scientific community and with society in general about their fields of knowledge in the modes and languages in common use in their international scientific community.
• f) Ability to promote, in academic and professional contexts, scientific, technological, social, artistic or cultural progress within a knowledge-based society.

Objectives

• Goal 1: To understand the principles of critical theory / thinking.
• Goal 2: To approach historical change through a strategic methodology, and grasp the dialectic between structure and agency.
• Goal 3: Develop and apply the strategic analysis from a critical/ Gramscian perspective.

Format

The course will mix various methodologies, such as master classes, working and debating on groups, as well as individual reflection and presentation.

Content

The course will delve into various topics such as:

• The open and contradictory nature of human knowledge;
• The materiality of doing (professional) research and its societal implications;
• The ontological principles of strategic thinking and its basic determinations;
• The political determinations of doing research in contemporary global capitalism;
• Specific analytical templates such as Antonio Gramsci’s ‘methodology of subaltern’ in the strategic conceptualisation of one’s own research.