Thanks to a grant of the Sino-Danish Center, Roskilde University (Denmark) and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) will be holding a unique joint interdisciplinary PhD course on comparative research designs in Beijing, August 28th to September 4th 2018. There will be no fees related to the course, and we have a small number of travel stipends available for participants currently enrolled in a Danish university.
Quick Links:
Information: http://sdc.university/about/events-at-sdc/phd-course-comparative-research-design/
Sign up: http://events.ruc.dk/SDC
Course Objectives:
This course aims to provide PhD students with an in depth introduction to the basic elements of comparative research design at the doctoral level. The course goes beyond that of a sole methodological course by applying methods to practice through separate modules educating participants on issues of strategic societal importance for countries like Denmark and China. The modules will focus on applying comparative methods to issue like globalization, talent mobility, challenges to the welfare state and demographic trends, while keeping academic focus on available methods and elaborating on comparative research methods that will allow the PhD students to strengthen and apply comparative research methods in their thesis.
The PhD course will include exploratory, interactive workshops reflecting existing SDC funded projects, which will further build on the strengths of the SDC faculty and associates.
The course has the following objectives:
1. Provide the participants with an understanding of the importance of formulating research questions in comparative research, and how to frame and develop the literature review
2. Make the participants acquainted with how to formulate a comparative research strategy
3. Introductions to multidisciplinary theoretical and empirical approaches
4. Ensure that participants are familiar with the professional practices and role of social sciences in the Nordic Countries and China
5. Familiarize participants with the challenges and dilemmas of professional research ethics and values in social sciences in Nordic countries and China
6. For SDC PhD Students: To familiarize the participating SDC PhD students on the double degree and special requirements related to the double degree as stated by UCAS.
Course Design and Overview:
This course is designed to train and engage PhD students in the basic elements of methodology and research design through assigned readings for preparation, introductory lectures for learning and reflection, and student reflection and discussion. All sessions will contain a combination of Danish and Chinese professors, and all sessions will be interactive, demanding discussion and active participation from all PhD students.
The course will be 6 days in length (not including the weekend 1st and 2nd of September). All participating students are required to have read the necessary material, have handed in a written assignment prior to the course and to participate actively during the course in order to achieve 5 ECTS (135 hours).
Preparation and required work:
1 week before course start, each PhD student must submit a paper or short paper. This could either be a description of your project, something which is suitable if you are early in your project. Or, it could be a draft article for an academic conference or journal. If you go for the project description paper, it should be 6 to 8 pages, 1.15 line spacing, and account for your research problem / research question, the main relevant theoretical literature, and your preliminary ideas about (comparative) methods. If instead you write a conference or journal paper, it should be 8 to 10 pages, 1.15 line spacing and account for your research problem / research question, the main relevant literature / theory, the methods you use, a brief indication of the data that you analyze, and a (tentative) conclusion.
The text should be written in English and sent to shre@ruc.dk by the 13th of August.
All course readings must be completed one day BEFORE the session in which they will be discussed.
Course Faculty Roskilde University:
Shahamak Rezaei
Kristian J. Sund
Peter Triantafillou
Johannes Kabderian Dreyer
Slobodan Kacanski
Matias Thuen Jørgensen
Course Faculty UCAS:
Zhao Hong
Jiang Yu
Accomodation and travels:
Please note that your flight and accomodation is paid by yourself/your home institution. During the course free lunch and drinks will be served. There is no course fee.
Stipend for participants enrolled at Danish universities:
It is possible to apply for a stipend that covers a limited amount of your flight ticket to China. Please write Shahamak Rezaei for more information: shre@ruc.dk
For more information about the Sino Danish Center:
http://sdc.university/
For any questions, please contact:
Shahamak Rezaei (shre@ruc.dk)
Birte Hansen (bihansen@ruc.dk)