Member's Zone

Trainees's Zone

University of Peloponnese
Dept. of Social and Educational Policy
Unit of on Analysis, Design and Implementation of Educational Programs

Key Personnel

Prof. Vasilis Koulaidis is currently professor and deputy president of the Department of Social and Educational Policy of the University of Peloponnese. He is also academic co-ordinator of the Education Program of the Hellenic Open University. He has served as Vice-President and executive director of the Greek Education Research Center and as member of several groups of experts of the Commission of the European Union responsible for the development of indicators for the public understanding of science and technology. His current research interests focus on the relationship between epistemology and understanding of science and technology, as well as on the analysis of techno-scientific material for non-expert audiences (students and general public).

Institutional profile

The Department of Social and Educational Policy of the University of Peloponnese was established under the Presidential Decree 118/2003 and belongs to the School of Social Sciences, in Corinth. Its prime mission is to offer under-graduate at this stage and post-graduate at a latter stage, university level education, focusing on the scientific study and analysis of all the dimensions of the framework, i.e. the structural, organizational, functional, administrative, political, economic and social within which various educational processes are developed. The courses offered are planned for people who wish to pursue a career in the future as:

• a) high rank officials of education,

• b) executives in educational institutions,

• c) designers of educational programmes and materials for various target groups

• d) as designers of large scale campaigns which aim at education, information and sensitisation of the general public.

In parallel to its educational mission the Department aims at promoting research in the field of Educational Policy and for this reason despite the short time since its establishment, it has already been actively involved in a considerable number of national and international projects.
The Department of Social and Educational Policy currently provides individual modules (e.g. ‘Science-Technology-Society’, ‘Life Long Education and Learning’, ‘Communication Theories’ ‘Issues of Functional Literacy: Science, Informatics, Mathematics’, ‘Informal Education’) as well as a whole group of modules entitled ‘Communication and Development of Educational Materials and Programmes” which have strong relevance to the field of ‘Science Communication’. The provision of these modules denotes the strategic orientation of the Department towards the development of novel methodologies for diffusing specialized techno-scientific knowledge to non-expert audiences through educational interventions either within formal or informal types of knowledge-based institutions (schools, universities, training centers, museums, NGOs, etc).
Furthermore, specific members of the teaching and research staff who have recently moved to the Department by conducting research in the area of Science Communication and Public Understanding of Science and Technology have developed over the years a cummulative experience on these issues which has resulted into novel techniques and perspectives.