Research Design in Political Economy.
Prerequisites
Optional for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students of the PhD Programme in "Political Science and Sociology"
Optional for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students of the PhD Programme in "Transnational Governance"
Programme
Designing and completing the PhD manuscript may be daunting and lonely exercise. This course is meant to support students in this endeavour. In particular, the course focuses on students’ research works by offering each student the opportunity to present, discuss, and get feedback on individual parts of their theses. Besides improving reciprocal knowledge and potential networking, the research design course aims at discussing, with reference to the specific projects, the main steps in the development of a research design: from the selection of the central research questions, to their theoretical framing, the case selection, the choice of the empirical methods of investigation, the challenges of field work, and the analysis and presentation of the results. Involving participants at different stages of their academic experiences, the seminar also offers the opportunity to develop PhD’s skills in discussing and constructively contributing to each other research, both during the formal sessions and in successive informal meetings.
Course format
The seminar has a crash course format and is organized into three full-day meeting according to the schedule provided below. 45 minutes will be assigned to each student to present ongoing thesis work, with 15 minutes of presentation, 10 minutes for the discussants and remaining time for Q&A with the audience. Each student will be assigned at least one discussant but all participants are expected to provide comments and feedbacks. Further details about the order of students’ presentations will be provided by the instructor via email by the end of March 2023.
Requirements and assessment:
Second, third and fourth-year PhD students will be required to circulate a draft thesis chapter or a thesis-related manuscript by April 25, 2023. By the same date, first-year students will be required to circulate an extended and updated PhD research proposal.
Assessment will be based on (a) the clarity of the presentation; (b) quality of the submitted work; and (c) participation to class discussion, in terms of feedback and peer-review comments provided to fellow PhD students.
Schedule
Session 1
May 5, 10 am – 4 pm
Session 2
May 8, 10 am – 5 pm
Session 3
May 9, 10 am – 5 pm
Educational aims
The course aims at providing first- and second-year PhD students with an opportunity to critically reflect and improve the research designs of their PhD theses. The course also aims at providing third- and fourth-year PhD students with a venue to present ongoing research work and to check progress towards the completion of the thesis manuscript. Finally, the course also provides all students with an opportunity to get acquainted with the academic practice of reviewing other colleagues’ research work.