ERA Colloquium

0. Research context/expected output

• In which context (e.g., university seminar, European Relations, other research contexts, …) do you conduct the research, and what is the expected output (e.g., thesis, research paper, analysis for European Relations, …)?
• In which disciplinary field(s) would you situate the research (e.g., International Relations, security studies, macroeconomics, …)?

1. Topic/Problem

• What broad phenomenon, case, process, or debate are you interested/do you address in your research?
• What is surprising, unresolved, contradictory, or insufficiently explained?
• Which (empirical) observation triggered the project?

2. Research Question/Hypotheses

• What exactly are you trying to explain, interpret, compare, evaluate, or understand?
• Is the question answerable with the available time and evidence?
• Does the wording imply causal, descriptive, normative, or interpretive, reconstructive ambitions?
• What are the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis resulting from the question? (in some research designs, for example, rather implicitly, in more statistical designs, more explicitly to address)

3. Theory/Conceptual Lens

• Which concepts/theories address aspects of the research question/the broader research picture and help explain or interpret the phenomenon?
• Which concepts/theories provide analytical terms which mirror constellations, structures, logics etc. of the phenomenon?
• What strategies do you use to find relevant literature/identify relevant literature strands related to your topic/question?
• Why this theory rather than alternatives?
• What mechanisms, expectations, or categories does it provide?
• What are you using the theory for?
• (In longer research papers, theses, etc., it is often required to review the existing literature on relevant theories and concepts separately from developing from this review a more focused theoretical framework for the specific work. → Literature Review vs. Theoretical Framework)

4. Case

• Do you want to analyse one case, two or more cases comparatively? Why?
• How do you delimit (in terms of the time period, locality, actors, …) the case(s) to avoid superficial analysis? Why in this manner?
• Do you want to apply/test assumptions from a theory or concept on a case(s)?
  
  • Is the case selection theoretically motivated, or is the selection of theories/concepts empirically motivated through the case?
• Why this case, i.e. these countries/organisations/actors/periods/documents? 
• Is this a typical, deviant, most-similar, or most-different case design?

5. Method/data/analysis

Data:

• Which data help you answer the research question regarding your selected case(s)?
  
  • Do you gather data that already exists (e.g., discursive data, data published by other parties, etc.) or are you part of the process producing the data (e.g., conducting interviews, surveys, aggregating raw data)?
• How do you gather the data?
  
  • Where do you search best for data? (e.g., look at the actors from your case(s) for primary data or at important knowledge structures (e.g., government/authority output, think tanks, universities, companies, newspapers, social media, broadcast services, IT metadata) related to your case(s) for primary/secondary data/sources)
  • What system or structure do you use for data gathering (e.g., snowball sampling; structured database queries; selection of documents/discursive utterances… based on keywords deductively derived from concepts/theories ( → theoretical framework),  …)?
  • What are your criteria for including data in your analysis and for excluding (what makes data relevant/irrelevant)? 
  • Over which time frame do you collect data, and how is this period justified (e.g., before/during/after a key event ( → case selection))? 
• When do you have gathered sufficient and suitable data for the purpose of your analysis and for answering your research question?
  
  • What are practical limitations for you gathering or analysing data regarding quantity of data, data types difficult to process, legally sensible data (e.g., personal data, secret government data)

Method:

• Which methodological approach best matches your research question and data (e.g., qualitative content analysis, discourse analysis, frame analysis, process tracing, comparative case study, …)?
  
  • Are qualitative or quantitative method/or mixed methods and triangulation indicated through the research question/data?
  • What is the logic of inference (descriptive mapping, causal explanation, interpretive reconstruction, comparison across cases, regression)?
  • What are your levels and units of analysis (individual statements, documents, actors, discursive patterns)?

• How do you structure the analysis (coding scheme, categories, stages of analysis)?
• How do you ensure transparency and rigour (e.g., clear coding rules, examples, intersubjective traceability)?
• What are the methodological limitations and how do you address or reflect on them?

6. Practical Problems/Questions you want to discuss (here’s a selection of common problems):

• At which exact point in your project are you currently stuck?
  
  • defining the topic/question and its scope
  • finding suitable theory/methodology
  • case(s) or delimit them
  • organise the research process
  • connect different parts of the research (such as coming from the literature review to the theoretical framework, finding suitable methods for your theory, …?
• You don’t know where to start?
• You think your research comes to a “So what?” – conclusion?
• You are unsure how to move from “familiarising yourself with the literature” to actually starting to analyse and write?
• Do you have concerns about the quality, reliability, or comparability of your research (“student research” vs. “scholarly research”)?
• Do you struggle to translate theoretical concepts into observable indicators or variables?
• Do your preliminary findings contradict your expectations or hypotheses, and how do you interpret this? Do new developments make your arguments/conclusions invalid/inconsistent, and you are unsure how to deal with it?
• Are you uncertain about how to structure your argument, analysis, or overall paper? 
• Which section of your work is currently the most difficult to write/work on, and why?
• Have you received feedback that you find difficult to interpret, prioritise, or implement? 
• Are you unsure how critical or ambitious your project should be given time and scope constraints? 
• What would be the most useful type of feedback for you at your current stage?
• If others could offer you one piece of concrete advice today, what should it be about?