ECPR Knowledge Politics and Policies Excellent paper award 2023

From the Standing Group on Knowledge Politics and Policies.

It is our great pleasure to announce that the jury composed of Tatiana Fumasoli (UCL, UK), Emanuela Reale (IRCRES NRC, Italy) and Luis Sanz-Menendez (IPP CSIC, Spain) have reached their decision and decided to award the 2023 Excellent Paper from an Emerging Scholar Award of the ECPR (The European Consortium for Political Research) Knowledge Politics and Policies Standing Group to Linda Maria Wanklin and Cecilia Ivardi, both affiliated with the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), for their paper titled “Transnational skill formation and its link to growth models: A case study of the politics of the German dominant growth coalition”.

In the view of the jury, this is a very interesting paper addressing a key topic with a sound methodology and distinctive analytical framework. The authors have originally contributed to linking skill formation with the understanding of economic growth coalitions from a well-developed historical institutionalism perspective. Using Germany as a case, they suggest the alignment of vocational education and training (VET) and migration policies with an export-led growth model driven by the state, employers, and unions, and interpret this as a process of layering and gradual institutional change.

Cecilia Ivardi is a PhD candidate in Political Economy at the University of St.Gallen. She is involved in the research funded by the Swiss Leading House GOVPET, focused on the governance of Vocational Education and Training (VET). Her research focuses on how advanced democracies adapt to societal transformations such as the rise of the knowledge economy and examines the policy areas of education, labor markets and migration. She is particularly interested in the ideas and discourses through which national elites steer adaptation processes. To study these, she uses a mixed-methods approach that combines insights from discourse network analysis (DNA) with case studies.

Linda Wanklin is doctoral researcher at the University of St. Gallen, where she is finalising her PhD in International Affairs and Political Economy. As a researcher within the Swiss Leading House GOVPET, she is primarily interested in the governance of skill formation systems and policy transfer initiatives in the field of vocational education and training (VET), aiming to explain their rise. Her research is predominantly theoretical. In addition to her doctoral studies, Linda works as a thematic expert for the Donor Committee for dual VET in development cooperation (DC dVET). Her research interests are, among others, driven by her previous experience working in the field of international development for various organisations, including the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Learn more about the prize and view previous winners here.