Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BIGSSS-departs (Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences - Doctoral Education in Partnerships)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2018-04-01 al 2021-07-31
BIGSSS is an international interdisciplinary graduate school of doctoral training in the social sciences. It was founded as an inter-university institution between the public University of Bremen and the private Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH in 2007. For the EU COFUND action, the University of Bremen serves as the mono-beneficiary for the BIGSSS-departs PhD Program with Jacobs University as a prime partner within the program.
The graduate school currently hosts 90 PhD fellows, 10 postdoctoral fellows, 70 (incl. four inhouse) faculty and ten staff members. Its alumni network consists of 160 PhD and 20 Postdoc alumni in academic and non-academic positions.
Research at BIGSSS focusses on contemporary challenges in the core disciplines of political sciences, sociology, and social psychology. Its academic program is structured in three thematic fields, which are broadly oriented to the focal points of work in the research institutes of the social sciences in Bremen.
A. Global Governance and European integration
B. Welfare State, Inequality, and Quality of Life
C. Changing Lives in Changing Socio-Cultural Contexts
At BIGSSS, these issues are analyzed from various theoretical and methodological perspectives and different national and cultural angles. Interdisciplinarity and empirical research projects are at the core of BIGSSS. Doctoral candidates profit from the graduate school’s ties to a number of outstanding social science research institutes at the University of Bremen and Jacobs University that provide the scientific experts for a close supervision of the PhD projects.
The doctoral program prepares PhD candidates for careers inside and outside academia and fosters international mobility and scientific exchange. The cooperation with inter-sectoral partners is an innovative strength of the program. Career Days and a strong and diverse alumni network offer further career counseling opportunities to the Early Stage Researchers (ESRs). PhD fellows commit themselves to a three-to-six-month stay abroad at one of the networks’ renowned academic or inter-sectoral partner institutions.
The graduate school currently hosts 90 PhD fellows, 10 postdoctoral fellows, 70 (incl. four inhouse) faculty and ten staff members. Its alumni network consists of 160 PhD and 20 Postdoc alumni in academic and non-academic positions.
Research at BIGSSS focusses on contemporary challenges in the core disciplines of political sciences, sociology, and social psychology. Its academic program is structured in three thematic fields, which are broadly oriented to the focal points of work in the research institutes of the social sciences in Bremen.
A. Global Governance and European integration
B. Welfare State, Inequality, and Quality of Life
C. Changing Lives in Changing Socio-Cultural Contexts
At BIGSSS, these issues are analyzed from various theoretical and methodological perspectives and different national and cultural angles. Interdisciplinarity and empirical research projects are at the core of BIGSSS. Doctoral candidates profit from the graduate school’s ties to a number of outstanding social science research institutes at the University of Bremen and Jacobs University that provide the scientific experts for a close supervision of the PhD projects.
The doctoral program prepares PhD candidates for careers inside and outside academia and fosters international mobility and scientific exchange. The cooperation with inter-sectoral partners is an innovative strength of the program. Career Days and a strong and diverse alumni network offer further career counseling opportunities to the Early Stage Researchers (ESRs). PhD fellows commit themselves to a three-to-six-month stay abroad at one of the networks’ renowned academic or inter-sectoral partner institutions.
During the first reporting period, BIGSSS published two calls for its BIGSSS-departs PhD Program. The fellowships were successfully advertised internationally and were attractive to doctoral candidates worldwide: BIGSSS recruited nine ESRs in the first call and ten in the second call. The 19 ESRs came from 15 different countries and five different continents. Efforts to achieve a gender balance in early career research were supported with more than 50 percent female ESRs in both departs cohorts.
The first project period was characterized by processes of initialization and specification. All ESRs had to undergo an ethical clearance process to secure high ethical research standard in the BIGSSS departs Program. All research projects were cleared by the BIGSSS Ethics Committee which provided guidance and feedback to the ESRs beyond that and throughout the entire research projects. In the further course of the first project period, all ESRs have successfully defended their proposal defenses and received approval for their projects’ research designs, met the relevant curricular requirements, and started to present and discuss their projects with the scientific community at international conferences and workshops.
Moreover, during the first project period, the BIGSSS-departs Partner Days took place in February 2018. The Partner Days were a two-days networking event aimed at bringing ESRs in contact with representatives from BIGSSS-departs partner institutions and, on the management level, discussing ideas for future joint projects to further deepen the cooperation within the network. Since project start, BIGSSS has succeeded in extending its initial BIGSSS-departs international academic and inter-sectoral partner network from ten in 2015 to 13 partners.
The second project period was characterized by intensified project work, scientific exchange and networking as well as finalization and, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic. Following up on the ties, that ESRs have built during the BIGSSS-departs Partner Days in the first project phase, all ESRs have been planning to visit one of the partner institutions for academic exchange. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic not all were able to realize their plans. Some of them were offered intensified opportunities for online exchange by the partners.
During the second project period, the BIGSSS Research Days took place in 2019 and 2020, a one-day-conference facilitating intense exchange between ESRs and BIGSSS’ faculty as well as across thematic fields. Beyond that, ESRs used possibilities to discuss and present insights gained from their research at international conferences and workshops.
Despite the severe problems relating to the pandemic, the majority of all BIGSSS-departs ESRs have submitted or successfully defended their dissertations to the public by now (autumn 2021). Almost all of those have already found follow-up postdoc positions at renowned, international research institutions in Bremen, Germany and abroad. We expect the remaining ESRs to finish their dissertation projects within the near future. From all research projects, so far 17 publications have resulted, most of them are accessible for the entire public as they have been published open access.
The first project period was characterized by processes of initialization and specification. All ESRs had to undergo an ethical clearance process to secure high ethical research standard in the BIGSSS departs Program. All research projects were cleared by the BIGSSS Ethics Committee which provided guidance and feedback to the ESRs beyond that and throughout the entire research projects. In the further course of the first project period, all ESRs have successfully defended their proposal defenses and received approval for their projects’ research designs, met the relevant curricular requirements, and started to present and discuss their projects with the scientific community at international conferences and workshops.
Moreover, during the first project period, the BIGSSS-departs Partner Days took place in February 2018. The Partner Days were a two-days networking event aimed at bringing ESRs in contact with representatives from BIGSSS-departs partner institutions and, on the management level, discussing ideas for future joint projects to further deepen the cooperation within the network. Since project start, BIGSSS has succeeded in extending its initial BIGSSS-departs international academic and inter-sectoral partner network from ten in 2015 to 13 partners.
The second project period was characterized by intensified project work, scientific exchange and networking as well as finalization and, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic. Following up on the ties, that ESRs have built during the BIGSSS-departs Partner Days in the first project phase, all ESRs have been planning to visit one of the partner institutions for academic exchange. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic not all were able to realize their plans. Some of them were offered intensified opportunities for online exchange by the partners.
During the second project period, the BIGSSS Research Days took place in 2019 and 2020, a one-day-conference facilitating intense exchange between ESRs and BIGSSS’ faculty as well as across thematic fields. Beyond that, ESRs used possibilities to discuss and present insights gained from their research at international conferences and workshops.
Despite the severe problems relating to the pandemic, the majority of all BIGSSS-departs ESRs have submitted or successfully defended their dissertations to the public by now (autumn 2021). Almost all of those have already found follow-up postdoc positions at renowned, international research institutions in Bremen, Germany and abroad. We expect the remaining ESRs to finish their dissertation projects within the near future. From all research projects, so far 17 publications have resulted, most of them are accessible for the entire public as they have been published open access.
In the months to come, the remaining BIGSSS-departs ESRs will finish their dissertation projects. Until then, they will continue to have the support of the BIGSSS faculty and staff, as well as can make use of the BIGSSS infrastructure. While many of the ESRs have already found follow-up positions in research, we anticipate no problems for the remaining ESRs in terms of academic job search. BIGSSS, of course, continues to offer career guidance. Moreover, we expect that many more publications from the ESRs' research projects will follow, as especially the publication of manuscripts and the peer review of journal articles can take a lot of time.
All ESRs will continue to pursue their research ideas developed in their research projects at BIGSSS, build on the theories, methods and skills acquired in BIGSSS, and on the networks established during this time, to address, the societal issues of our time on a scientific basis. They will pass on their knowledge to other ESRs while being sensitive for issues of culture, gender, and equality as they have been socialized with it in BIGSSS.
All ESRs will continue to pursue their research ideas developed in their research projects at BIGSSS, build on the theories, methods and skills acquired in BIGSSS, and on the networks established during this time, to address, the societal issues of our time on a scientific basis. They will pass on their knowledge to other ESRs while being sensitive for issues of culture, gender, and equality as they have been socialized with it in BIGSSS.