Summer School of the Standing Group on Political Communication

Submit the following via this form by midnight UK time on Friday 24 March 2023:

1. Motivation letter (one page):

• explaining your reasons for participating;
• outlining what you hope to achieve as a result of your participation and how this will help your PhD progress;
• providing a description of the current progress (stage) of your PhD.

2. Long abstract (approx. 750 words)
This abstract should be of the chapter or article from your PhD thesis that you would like to present at the Summer School. For first-year PhD students, this can be an abstract of the PhD project as a whole. 

3. Your CV
Please also indicate the start date and the expected end date of your PhD studies.

4. Fee waiver statement (if applicable)
If you would like to be considered for a fee waiver, please indicate this in a short statement, clearly explaining the reasons.

Partial or incomplete applications will not be processed. Late applications will not be accepted.

You will be informed about the outcome of your application by email by late April.

Each application will be evaluated by the organising team against the criteria outlined below. 

The organising team will also take into account criteria for ensuring diversity and will actively pursue inclusiveness.

Proposal strength

The better developed the paper proposal, both in terms of theory and research design, the higher the score on this criterion. PhD candidates with better developed proposals are given preference, as they will be more likely to make direct use of the insights gained from lectures. If participants have no clear idea of what they intend to research, the Summer School is less likely to add value to their PhD track. 

Proposal methodology

Proposals that require methods covered in the Summer School (experiments, comparative designs, computational and automated data collections for the 2023 edition) will be given preference over proposals that do not require any such methods. 

Candidate profile

Candidates with an MA in either political science or communication science are given preference over other backgrounds, as this increases the chance they will have received adequate training in social science research methods. Moreover, candidates that are in the early years of their PhD (years 1/2) are given preference over candidates in the later stages of their PhD track.