2nd GCRF COMPASS International Training School for Early Career Researchers: Good Governance and Effectiveness of Public Institutions in Post-Soviet Eurasia

University

07.11.2019

We are delighted to announce a Call for Applications to the 2^nd GCRF COMPASS International Training School for Early Career Researchers (TS) under the aegis of the GCRF COMPASS Project. The TS is scheduled for 17-21 February 2020 and is organised by the ADA University’s Centre of Excellence in EU Studies. TS is tailored to offer an opportunity for research development, training, exchange of ideas and network-building for PhD and postdoctoral students working in the field of governance studies.

The TS’s theme focuses on ‘Good Governance and Effectiveness of Public Institutions in post-Soviet Eurasia’ looking at best practice and development challenges of public institutions (e.g. parliaments, civil service, institutions of government, etc.), and their role and effectiveness in delivering good governance across Post-Soviet countries. Although, Post-Soviet states share the history of a complex communist past, they nevertheless have been developing standards of good governance at a different pace and level, learning from international organisations, but also internally. In the last decade public sector entities in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan have been reformed to satisfy a complex range of political, economic and social objectives, which subjected them to a different set of internal and external constraints. This TS will seek to understand the processes of reforming public institutions in social-cultural, economic and political-international spheres.

The current TS aims at PhD, postdoctoral students and practitioners working in/with public institutions. Topics may be wide-ranging, covering all aspects of good governance such as institutional governance, urban governance, security governance and etc. in Post-Soviet Eurasia region.

The approach of the TS is interdisciplinary, meaning that we welcome participation from the social sciences, the humanities and law. Papers may focus exclusively on Post-Soviet Eurasian countries or region, on the issues related with public institutions and their effectiveness in reaching good governance objectives and goals. Comparative approaches are also welcomed.

The TS will include presentation and discussion of papers submitted by the participating students, skill workshops and lectures. Papers will be grouped into a series of panels with 3-4 presentations in each. Panels will be chaired by senior scholars, and appointed discussants will lead discussions to ensure that all participants get valuable feedback on their contribution. Best papers will be published online as part of the GCRF TS report.

Skill workshops will be organized around the following:

Identifying places for publication
How to write book proposals
How to plan a journal article
Citations and Scopus
Structures and requirements for international publishing
Opportunities for small grants to support fieldwork or academic publishing

In order to ensure that all papers receive adequate attention, places are limited to a maximum of 25 participants.

In order to apply, please fill in the Application form, including a brief abstract of the paper you intend to present at the Training School (150 to 200 words), and email to ceeus@ada.edu.az no later than November 30, 2019, with “GCRF COMPASS ECR TS” in the subject line.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by mid-December. In the case of selection for participation in Training School, participants are required to pay 100 AZN registration fee. To guarantee a place, participants should submit their papers (5,000 words max) by 15 January 2020.

This international training school is sponsored by the GCRF COMPASS Project UK Research Councils. For more information, please check https://research.kent.ac.uk/gcrf-compass .