Karriere an der FHNW: Call for the MAKE/SENSE PhD Programme 2026

The PhD is carried out in partnership between Basel and Linz and hosted by the Critical Media Lab at the Institute Experimental Design and Media Culture in Basel. Supervision is provided jointly by faculty from both institutions. The programme combines individualized mentoring with monthly colloquia and an annual assembly.  

• Situated Artistic Research: Supports practices that challenge dominant epistemologies through embodied, affective, and experimental modes of inquiry. 
• ​​Infrastructural Critique:Engages with institutional, technological and research infrastructures as sites of critique, abolitionist intervention, collective reimagining, and world-making.​
• Critical Media:Explores how knowledges are read, written, mediated, and circulated through practice-based approaches to reading and writing, publishing, and expanded formats.

Applications are welcome from artists, curators, publishers, designers, and culturalorganisers holding an MA degree (120 ECTS) or an equivalent qualification.

This call is for the pre-proposal submission, which must include: ​​

-Motivation letter listing 2 preferred supervisors and rationale, plans for financing the PhD (need for support to external funding applications or grants you plan to apply for) (2 p. A4) ​

-Project outline (2–3 p. A4, excl. references) including:​ research question, ​short state of the art​, relevance and topicality regarding areas of concern (at least one), proposed methods ​and proposed outcomes ​

-Curriculum Vitae

-Portfolio (art/design/curatorial/writing samples) ​

-MA and BA diplomas (incl. transcripts)

Selection process and key dates: