Dirk Berg-Schlosser Award

All Teaching Assistants at our Winter School in Methods and Techniques and Summer School in Methods and Techniques are eligible for the Dirk Berg-Schlosser Award.

Teaching Assistants are evaluated by a jury, who consider, with equal weighting:

• The results of the participant survey
• A 200-300 word supporting statement by the Instructor for the relevant course
  

All participants and Instructors will be contacted to provide these assessments after the conclusion of the School.

Jury

The jury for the Dirk Berg-Schlosser Award is composed of a member of the Training Sub-Committee (TSC) of ECPR's Executive Committee, the Methods School Academic Convenors, and a representative from the local host institution. In the case that the representative of the local host is an Instructor, they will be asked to stand down from the jury, and will be replaced by another member of the TSC.

See more information about the Methods School.

2022 - Alina Isakova and Daniel Kovarek

The 2022 Prize was awarded jointly to Alina Isakova and Daniel Kovarek for their work as Teaching Assistants on several courses at the Methods Schools.

Alina Isakova is a PhD candidate and a Doctoral Researcher with the Research Training Group World Politics at Bielefeld University. Her dissertation focuses on inter-organisational cooperation in conflict early warning and response from the 1990s through to 2022.  Alina’s research interests include the construction of global governance, IOs and NGOs, inter-organisational relations, as well as conflict prevention, migration, and social integration. 

In her own words: 'I very much appreciate receiving the Dirk-Berg Schlosser Award and especially the attention it draws to the role of teaching assistants at the ECPR Methods School.'

Daniel Kovarek is a postdoctoral research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and holds a PhD in Political Science from Central European University, Vienna. He specialises in the intersection of political behaviour, political geography, and distributive politics. In his current position, Daniel studies the policy-making processes in various crises of the European Union, using survey experiments and text-as-data methods. 

In his own words: 'I am deeply honoured to receive the Dirk Berg-Schlosser award. As I have been a Teaching Assistant for various ECPR Methods Schools courses for many years, it feels great that Instructors and students alike found my presence helpful.'

2021 - Clare McKeown

Clare McKeown is a PhD researcher funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities / Arts and Humanities Research Council (SGSAH / AHRC). Her recently submitted (and awaiting viva) PhD considers the role of beauty in Scottish feminist campaigns to end men’s violence against women. Her primary research home is at the department of Communications, Media, and Culture at the University of Stirling in Scotland.

Clare’s work is informed by interdisciplinary perspectives from the social sciences and humanities. Her research interests include feminist theory, men’s violence against women, media studies, public relations, and public communications campaigns. Clare returned to academia after nearly a decade of work in the Scottish third sector, and she believes research is an invaluable tool in building a more just world.

In her own words: "I was delighted to learn I had been awarded the Dirk Berg-Schlosser Award – even more so when I found out that the award decision was determined by the student evaluation surveys. I greatly enjoy teaching, especially at the ECPR where I (virtually) met so many interesting people doing valuable work. It’s really gratifying to know that others found my input useful for developing and improving their own interview practice."

2020 - Ameni Mehrez and Alberto Stefanelli 

Ameni Mehrez and Alberto Stefanelli were awarded the 2020 Dirk Berg-Schlosser prize for their work as teaching assistant on the Multi-Level Modelling course at our Virtual Methods School.

Ameni is a third-year PhD student in comparative politics at Central European University. For her PhD project, she studies the link between moral values and political ideologies with a focus on the Arab world. Her main areas of research are political behavior and ideology in the MENA region, the role of religion in politics, and public opinion surveys. She has experience in teaching quantitative methods, is the founder and chair of the Middle East and North Africa Space (research group based at CEU) and has been the principle investigator of a post-elections survey fielded in Tunisia and which will make a contribution to the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES).

Alberto is a quantitative social scientist and methods enthusiast. Currently, he is an FWO PhD Fellow at the Institute for Social and Political Opinion Research (ISPO), KU Leuven, Belgium. His research interests are mostly within the field of public opinion, statistics, voting behaviour, populism, and attitudes towards democracy. In his PhD, Alberto investigates, conceptually as well as empirically, the nature of radical belief systems; their determinants; their behavioural and social consequences; and how they relate to democratic principles and liberal values.

2019 - Mario Munta and Dina Vozab

2018 - Bastiaan Bruinsma

2017 - Ioana-Elena Oană

Prior to this the Dirk Berg-Schlosser prize was given for the best poster at the Summer School. Please see below for the first, second, and third placed winners for each year: