Following a recent meeting, the Graduate Network are pleased to announce the Co-ordinating Committee. Portfolios have now been established and assigned. If you have any questions or queries, please contact the relevant committee member.

• Who are we?
• Who are the members?
• How we work
• What we do
• Committee members

Who we are?

The ECPR Graduate Network was created to facilitate graduate academic and research activity and networking. It provides a framework for interaction and joint initiatives of junior social science researchers.

Who are the members?

The Network is formed of graduate students, Ph.D. candidates and post-doctoral researchers enrolled in the ECPR member institutions. Unlike the ECPR itself, the Network has an individual membership basis. So far over 750 members have registered in the Network.

How we work

A co-ordinating committee of the Network was set up in June 2004. Its mission is to co-ordinate and prepare the activities organised under the Network's umbrella (which includes input from the ECPR executive committee, the editorial board of the new book series and the members). The co-ordinating committee consists of Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers, who are individually or jointly responsible for a particular portfolio of activity.

What we do

The coordinating committee :

•  maintains a membership database which can be browsed online. Its aim is to provide our members with a handy tool to find other graduate students with shared research interests and working on related topics;

•  regularly publishes a newsletter which is distributed to members informing them about the Network's activities, academic conferences, summer schools and general calls for papers;

•  provides graduate events at other ECPR occasions such as the general conference;

The editorial board of the new book series

•  yearly, gives out the ECPR Jean Blondel PhD prize to the best dissertation in political science completed by a member of an ECPR member institution;

•  has started a new ECPR book series re-issuing classic works and publishing research monographs and outstanding PhD theses.

The ECPR executive committee and the coordinating committee :

organise a General Conference of the ECPR Graduate Network, held every two years, whose aim is to bring together 500 graduate students and senior political scientists in a high-standard academic event (see below for more details).

 

The Committee members

Irina Stefuriuc - Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
Conference Co-ordinator (other conferences)
I am responsible for ensuring the presence of the graduate network at other ECPR events such as the General Conference and the Joint Sessions of Workshops. This task includes organising our professional development panels at the ECPR General Conference.

Jennifer Sands - University of Leeds
Conference Co-ordinator (Graduate Conference)
Jennifer’s role is to help organise the ECPR Graduate Conference, along with Robin Pettitt, the local organisers, ECPR Central Services and a member of the ECPR Executive Committee.  Following the resounding success of the first Graduate Conference at the University of Essex in September 2006, the next Graduate Conference will take place in August 2008 at Barcelona, Spain. Primarily, Jennifer and Robin’s duties involve helping to decide on the format and content of the conference, and assisting in the selection of papers and panels (and other matters of this nature). Additionally, they have a duty to disseminate such information to other members of the Graduate Network and to discuss any pertinent issues regarding the conference with them, as well as to pass on their suggestions, comments and recommendations to the other people/bodies involved


Rainbow Murray - Birkbeck College, University of London
Newsletter and Website Editor
Rainbow’s roles are firstly to edit and disseminate the electronic newsletter that is regularly sent out to all our members.  The newsletter contains updates on all our activities, information about recent and forthcoming events, ways to get involved, calls for papers and so on.  If you would like to receive the newsletter and are not yet signed up, then please send an email to ecpr@essex.ac.uk asking to be added to the mailing list.  Rainbow’s other role is to maintain and update the content of the ECPR Graduates website.

Katja Fettelschoss - University of Lüneburg
Internal Communications
The Internal Communications portfolio includes communications with the members, the Graduate Official Representatives (GORs) and Eileen Connolly, the Executive Committee member responsible for graduate affairs.

Tommaso Chiamparino – University of Florence
Treasurer
Tommaso is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the “Cesari Alfieri” University of Florence, Italy.  His task is to monitor all the budgetary and financial aspects related to the activity of the Graduate Network.  Currently funds are allocated on enabling the committee to attend vital meetings and graduate network events, as well as producing materials such as flyers and paying for events such as a graduate reception at the general conference.

Robin T. Pettitt – Kingston University of London
Conference Co-ordinator (Graduate Conference)
Robin’s role is to share the task with Jennifer Sands of helping organise the ECPR Graduate Conference.  They will be working as a team, along with others (see above) to organise and be the academic convenors of the next Graduate Conference in Barcelona, August 2008.  Don’t forget to keep an eye on the website for more information about this exciting event.

Kalin Ivanov – University of Oxford
External Relations
Kalin’s role is to establish links of cooperation between the ECPR Graduate Network and other political science associations at the national or international level.

GRADUATE NETWORK COMMITTEE - ELECTIONS 2008

Call for Candidates

Elections to the Co-ordinating Committee of the ECPR Graduate Network will be organised before the Second ECPR Graduate Conference in Barcelona (25-27 August 2008). These are the second elections to the Committee. According to the Network's rules set in the Constitution, for the sake of continuity only part of the committee will be renewed through elections every two years. This year six new members to the committee will be elected. Nominations are now officially open.

We would like to invite potential candidates to send in an expression of interest to Katja Fettelschoss (fettelschoss@uni.leuphana.de). In order to be eligible, candidates need to be enrolled in graduate or post-doctoral studies at any ECPR member institution. No candidate holding a PhD received earlier than within the past three years will be eligible. We especially encourage applications from students who have recently embarked on their PhD and who are thus likely to be able to actively serve on the committee for one or two full mandates.

Here is a brief description of what the co-ordinating committee does:

• It maintains a membership database which can be browsed online. Its aim is to provide our members with a handy tool to find other graduate students with shared research interests and working on related topics;
• It regularly publishes a newsletter which is distributed to members informing them about the Network's activities, academic conferences, summer schools and general calls for papers;
• It provides graduate events at other ECPR occasions such as the general conference;
• It organizes graduate thematic/regional conferences and research meetings;
• It co-organizes the ECPR Graduate Conference to be held every two years.
  

Candidates are expected to commit to the general objectives of the Network and be ready to contribute to its further development. There is no financial retribution for sitting on the committee. The committee position is unpaid, although expenses for travelling to meetings are covered.

Elections will be held on the basis of self-nominations. Candidates are invited to nominate themselves for election. If interested, you are thus invited to contact Katja Fettelschoss and she will provide you with more information as well as a form that you will need to send back on which you will need to briefly state your interest and motivation for becoming a committee member. The deadline for receiving nominations is June 27, 2008. Voting will then be open to all graduate network members and the new committee will be presented at the Graduate Conference in Barcelona in August.

For more information on the committee and the distribution of portfolios please see above, or write to Katja Fettelschoss (fettelschoss@uni.leuphana.de). Candidates should not put themselves forward for a particular portfolio; all roles and duties of committee members will be allocated at the first meeting of the newly convened committee.

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