About the Courses

The ECPR Methods School offers a broad variety of courses that cater for the needs of researchers in political science and neighbouring disciplines. The Summer School offers five types of courses, each designed to complement the others thus providing a full and comprehensive package of tuition (a further 'Preparatory' short course is available at the Winter School only).

The Summer School programme starts with Short Intensive Refresher courses and a brand new course type: the "Seasoned Scholar Workshop", both held on the 27, 28 and 29 July, followed by a choice of five different categories of Main courses, which run between 31 July and 11 August.

You can choose from the following course / combinations:

• Short Intensive Refresher course
• Seasoned Scholar Workshop
• Week-one and / or week-two main course
• Two-week main course
• A combination of a Refresher course or Seasoned Scholar Workshop with a week-one, week-two or two-week main course.
• The "Double Espresso" combination of two main courses offered in the same week(s).  These courses are marked with a coffee cup emoji ☕

See the Course Fees page for all course fees.

Short Intensive Refresher Courses

The Refresher courses run over three days, five hours per day (10:00-12:00 and 14:00-17:00), starting on Thursday 27 July.  These courses offer tools that will be useful for further courses; typically it is software training, before taking a data analysis course.

Seasoned Scholar "à la carte" Workshop

These "à la carte" methods workshops are five hours per day, for three days, beginning on Thursday 27 July (workshop times to be confirmed).  The workshops have been designed for more experienced scholars (criteria: at least five years post PhD, and / or at least 10 years research experience, and / or senior academic appointment) who face various needs and challenges in terms of social scientific research methods.

Main courses

There are five categories of Main course available at the Summer School, listed below. You can take one-week courses (15 hours over five days) or two-week courses (30 hours over 10 days) on their own or combine them with a Short Intensive Refresher course or Seasoned Scholar Workshop (please see the criterion for the Seasoned Scholar Workshop [link to SSW webpage].

Research design/fundamentals course: An ‘upstream’ course enabling you to think about your research more broadly, so you can make more informed choices about specific methods/techniques.

Data collection/generation course: A hands-on course focused on a specific method (or family of methods) for data collection or generation.

Data analysis course (introductory): A hands-on course focused on a specific method (or family of methods) for data analysis, bringing you to a level of well-informed use.

Data analysis course (intermediate):A hands-on course focused on a specific method (or family of methods) for data analysis, bringing you to an intermediate level, including more recent refinements.

Data analysis course (advanced): A hands-on course focused on a specific method (or family of methods) for data analysis, bringing you to an expert level, including more recent refinements.

Week-one courses start on Monday 31 July and finish on Friday 4 August, and week-two courses start on Monday 7 August, finishing on Friday, 11 August (3 hours of class instruction per day, and additional self-study per day).  Two-week courses run over both weeks, starting on Monday 31 July and are also 3 hours of class instruction per day, with additional self-study each day.  Generally, class times are either in the morning, finishing around 12:30 or afternoon, finishing around 17:30.  To gain ECTS, some instructors of the two-week courses set an exam on the morning of Saturday 12 August.