3rd Berlin Summer School in Social Sciences – Linking Theory and Empirical Research Berlin, July 14-26, 2013
The Berlin Summer School in Social Sciences aims at promoting young researchers by strengthening their methodological understanding in linking theory and empirical research. The two weeks program also creates an excellent basis for the advancement of their current research designs.
In the first week we address the key methodological challenges of concept-building, causation/explanation and micro-macro-linkage that occur in almost all research efforts and strive for a clarification of the epistemological implications underlying methodological paradigms. In the second week, these methodological considerations are applied to central empirical fields of research in political science and sociology. In this second part of the program participants are assigned to four thematic groups according to their own research topics. The thematic areas cover “Comparing Democracies: Political Competition, Democratic Institutions and Public Policies”, “Social Inequality, Conflict and Integration”, “The Dynamics of National and International Regimes” and “Culture and Knowledge in a Globalized World”.
The course encompasses a varied format of lectures, workshops, seminars, and consultations. During the summer school participants will also have the opportunity to present and intensely discuss their own work and approaches and will be provided with hands-on advice for their research designs.
The school brings together a faculty of renowned international and Berlin-based scholars. Among the confirmed international lecturers are Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley), Gary Goertz (University of Notre Dame), Guillermina Jasso (New York University), Jessica Pisano (New School of Social Research), Mario Small (University of Chicago) and Loїc Wacquant (UC Berkeley).
The Berlin Summer School is a joint endeavor of the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences (BGSS) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). It is co-funded by the two institutions. In addition, parts of the costs for the program are covered by tuition fees. More details can be found on our webpage.
The international summer school is open to up to 50 PhD candidates, advanced master students and young Post-Docs. The call for applications has opened. Applications can be submitted online via the application form on the summer school webpage until March 25, 2013.
The decisions of the selection committee will be communicated to the applicants at the beginning of April.
For more information, please visit our webpage at www.berlinsummerschool.de. If you have additional questions, please contact directly Andreas Schäfer at summerschool.bgss@hu-berlin.de