GURN trains young Ukrainian researchers in qualitative research: First part of online Methods School successfully implemented
Just in time for the start of the winter term, the GURN Methods School 2020 was launched. It is a new and unique online event series, primarily aimed at Ukrainian think tanks and junior researchers who focus on policy analysis and not so much on academic research. The requirements for selection were an interest in the use of qualitative methods and a concrete research idea or analytical publication in the pipeline, which the applicants sought to improve through their participation in the Methods School with regards to structure, research design and methodology. Also noteworthy: The trainers are both from Ukraine and Germany. Many of them are alumni of GURN or its preceding project PAIC (“Platform for Analytics and Intercultural Communication”).
The GURN Methods School 2020 is organised in four separate thematic blocks that will be implemented throughout autumn. The participants will learn how to develop high-quality research designs, apply qualitative methods and become familiar with the analysis of discourse phenomena. During the first part which took place in the course of six online events from late September to early October, the young researchers focused on developing their own research design, the methodological basics of comparison and dealt with process tracing – an instrument for reconstructing political, social and institutional processes.
From initial idea to research design
The first two seminars on September 25 and 26, 2020 were led by Dr Oksana Huss (University of Bologna) and Oleksandra Keudel (Free University of Berlin). During two three-hour workshops, they gave valuable advice to the young academics on how to develop relevant research questions, work in a result-oriented manner without overlooking important findings, formulate indicators and generalise results. Two further sessions on October 2 and 3 focused on the structure, argumentation and communication of scientific results.
The logic of comparison and the search for causality
The third and fourth seminar on September 30 and October 1, 2020 were led by Thomas Barret (Free University of Berlin) and Sebastian Hoppe. Barret taught about the advantages and disadvantages of Most Similar Systems Designs (MSSD) and Most Different Systems Designs (MDSD) for the development of comparative studies. In the class of Hoppe, who works at the Institute for Eastern European Studies at the Free University of Berlin and is a guest researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the participants dealt with process tracing. Process tracing is a methodological approach which is particularly suitable for the investigation of complex phenomena and attempts to identify causal links.
The GURN Methods School is a series of online workshops with a focus on qualitative research that took place in autumn 2020. In four thematic blocks, young researchers, most of whom work at Ukrainian think tanks, among other things learned to develop their own research design, to apply qualitative methods such as process tracing, content/video analysis and interviews, and to analyse political discourses from a social science perspective.
The project “German Ukrainian Researchers Network” (GURN) aims at establishing a German-Ukrainian research network for junior and senior researchers and their organisations, strengthening country expertise and promoting joint cooperation projects. GURN is conducted in close cooperation with the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation(DIF, Kyiv), the think tank development and research initiative think twice UA(Kyiv), the New Europe Center(NEC, Kyiv) and is kindly supported by the Federal Foreign Office.