PAIC-Workshop Series for Think Tank Representatives in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv
Between March and May 2019, the project “Platform for Analytics and Intercultural Communication” (PAIC) conducted a series of workshops on the topic: “Research in Think Tanks: Developing Your Own Research Design and Qualitative Data Analysis” for representatives of Ukrainian think tanks in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv.
A total of 45 think tankers both from Kyiv and the Ukrainian regions participated in the two day long intense courses on the theoretical and practical principles of academic work, research methods and data analysis tools. Each day started with an introduction to the program and the objectives of the workshop by Mona Richter, Research Associate at the Institute for European Politics (IEP, Berlin) and project manager of project PAIC, and Andrii Sukharyna, Political Analyst at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF, Kyiv), to provide a framework of expectations and content for the participants.
On the first day of the workshops, our trainer Oleksandra Keudel, PhD candidate at the Berlin Graduate School for Global and Transregional Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin and research consultant for international and civil society organizations, worked out the key differences between academic research and policy analysis with the participants and introduced them to the development of analytical problems and research questions. During the course of the session, the participants practiced different steps of analytical paper writing that ranged from designing the content and the structure to applying different argumentation techniques. Furthermore, they learned how to increase the impact of a policy publication.
The second workshop day was facilitated by Sebastian Hoppe, Research Associate at the Institute for East European Studies at the Free University of Berlin, who covered the methodological aspects of the workshop. The participants trained their knowledge on (comparative) case studies and tools for the analysis of the obtained data. Practical exercises covered the use of reference management tools and their benefits for the structure of the research. Each day was completed by a feedback round and debriefing session to review and solidify the lessons learned.
This series of workshops was part of the project “Platform for Analytics and Intercultural Communication” (PAIC) which aims at promoting professional expertise among Ukrainian think tanks, creating synergies between German and Ukrainian think tanks and transferring knowledge about developments in Ukraine to Germany. PAIC is conducted in close cooperation with the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initatives Foundation (DIF, Kyiv) and the think tanks development and research initiative think twice UA (Kyiv) and is kindly supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.
