COST Action CA15207

Professionalization and Social Impact of European Political Science

Deliverables

Survey: Impact of COVID19 crisis on the field of political science

  • CAWI, 9 October 2020 – 4 December 2020: 1400 full questionnaire responses (response rate 11.5%)
  • 3 analytic dimensions: professional adaptation, perception of PS social relevance, awareness of change
  • click here to read the report: PROSEPS Covid survey 2020

The WGs Reports

The PROSEPS survey

  • A wide survey of attitudes of all the professional Political scientists in 39 European countries (also including Israel and Turkey). It will provide background information for a thick description of the current profile of the discipline
  • More than 11k contacts. A huge address-list, including information of «professional positions» across countries
  • A long multiligual web-based questionnaire (20 minutes) to analyse the disciplinary vision of each respondent and the conceptions of professionalism and internationalization. A number of questions covering several attitudes of political scientists: mobility, advocacy, media involvement, civic engagement.
  • These data will be then connected to more specific and limited sub-projects: «mini-panels» and «flash surveys» to be realised in the course of 2019 concerning some hot issues for the discipline and its scientific perspectives.
    • Survey reminders: the first invitations has been sent in March 2018 and 3 reminders have been sent since then. The last reminder before the closing of the survey has been sent in mid-November.
    • “Bounced” email addresses: a total of about 500 persons has been progressively excluded from the list of respondents because of invalid or undelivered emails, new position outside Europe, refusal, temporary unavailability or retirement. About 300 email changes because of new affiliations.
    • Response rate: we collected more than 2300 full questionnaire responses (+ about 1000 incomplete). The response rate is highly differentiated among countries.
    • Survey advertisement: the Presidents of the various National Political Science Association have been contacted in order to ask for support for our project and for advertising the survey among their members. Cost members also engaged in advertising the survey among colleagues in their own countries.

Main deliverables

1. Definition of a first grid of variables for the compilation of a directory of European Political Scientists.

  • criteria for defining a “political scientists”:
    • when available: legal criteria (e.g. national accreditation schemes; ministerial definitions/regulations)
    • When official /legal criteria do not exist: (I) Institutional affiliation or PhD in Political Science and (II) research record or teaching activities (click here for more details)
  • the final dataset/contact list includes: name and surname, position, affiliation, country, gender, year of birth, 3 areas of interest

1.2. Compilation of a directory of political scientists with their corresponding affiliations, basic sociologic features, areas of interests (WG1):

  • National supervisors and their teams started collecting data on the basis of the former criteria in summer 2017. The whole contact file containing data from all countries became available before spring 2018, when the first survey invitations were sent (except Israel and Turkey, who joined the project at a later time) .
  • Click here to see a table reporting the number of surveyed political scientists by country.
    • The table refers to the original contact file provided by each national supervisor with small adjustments. In the meantime changes might have occurred (change of affiliation, retirement etc.). Apart for this, some numbers may appear a little unbalanced in terms of country size but WG1 is currently working to homogenize the data.
    • Because of privacy reasons it is not possible to provide names and contact details of the people included in the list.

2. Code-book devoted to the collection of the most relevant information about the international circulation of the research of European Political Scientists (WG2)

  • Indicators of internationalization of political scientists addressed by the PROSEPS survey:
    • Internationalization in publication activities
      • Publication in foreign journals, international co-authors, publication in English, publication in a second foreign language
      • Peer-reviewed international journals, chapters in edited books published by international publishing houses, monographs published by international publishing houses
    • International activities
      • International conferences, research stay abroad (at least 2 weeks), teaching in a foreign country, international research collaboration
      • Partner or subcontractor of a research project funded by international institutions, member of an international research network, reviewer of project applications funded by international or other country’s institutions, referee or editor for an international peer-reviewed journal, reviewer or book series editor for an international publishing house (in a foreign country)
    • Time spent working (performing research or teaching duties) in foreign countries
    • Self-perception of the own level of internationalization compared to national colleagues
    • Motivations for international activities
      • Preference for national or international activities for career development, creating network, publishing, collaborating on research projects, securing research funding
    • Means to support international activity
      • Most used language for teaching and research-related activities
      • other languages used for research, teaching, or other work-related activities (e.g., policy advice and consulting)
    • Work in another country (for contracted research or teaching position, not visiting positions)

3. Grid of variables to be covered concerning the perception and evidence of the participation of Political Science in the public sphere (WG3)

  • Indicators of public visibility and impact of political scientists addressed by the PROSEPS survey:
    • Personal evaluation of the public visibility of the research produced by national colleagues
    • Visibility of political scientists in comparison to other academics or public intellectuals
    • Increased/decreased impact of political scientists’ work since the 2009 crisis compared with the former situation
    • Participation in public debates in the traditional and new media
      • Type of media, frequency, local/national/foreign level, type of contribution
    • Evaluation of political scientist’s social role: engage/not engage in the public debate
    • Recognition of the importance of participation to the public debate for career advancement

4. Short questionnaire, concerning the advisory role of European Political Scientists to be integrated into the on-line survey (WG4)

  • Indicators of advisory or advocacy policy role of political scientists addressed by the PROSEPS survey:
    • Frequency and type of engagement in advisory activities with policy actors
      • type of policy actors, level of governance, formal or informal engagement
    • Frequency of employment and type of channels employed to provide policy advice and/or consulting services
    • Support for political scientists’ engagement in policy-making and public debate
    • Substantive policy areas in which the advice is concerned and area of expertise
    • Reasons for engagement in advisory or consulting activities

News

12 December 2019

WG Reports are out!

WG1: The State of Political Science in Europe; WG2: Towards an European Political Science? Opportunities and Pitfalls in the Internationalisation [...]
5 September 2019

Working Group Meeting, Workshops/Conferences, The Hague, 19-20 September

New Babylon Conference Centre - Anna van Buerenplein 29, 2595 DA Den Haag, The Netherlands, Future Scenarios of the European [...]