IZO Early Career Researcher Network (ECRN)
Events of the ECR Network
Regular Network Meetings on Campus
Since the 2021/22 winter semester, we have been organising regular informal meetings to exchange ideas concerning our research and teaching activities as well as to plan new network activities.
All ECRN members are also invited to present their own projects or project ideas at these working lunches and to receive inspiring feedback from people with other professional backgrounds and regional focus areas. Joint ideas can be further developed into project applications within the framework of the IZO's ECRN Fund.
IZO Early Career Researcher Network Workshop on “Publishing in Academic Journals”, 30 August 2023
For Early Career Researchers, writing and publishing journal articles is an essential but often daunting task. How do you frame your original research and contribute to existing debates? How do you tailor your writing to specific journals? How do peer review processes work? These are real questions and challenges, especially when it comes to submitting to journals. At the same time, the pressure to publish has never been greater. For individual researchers, this can be a difficult and often frustrating task. During our workshop, we tackled these issues head-on.
First, we had a session with Professor Lena Rethel (University of Warwick), who until recently was the editor-in-chief of the Review of International Political Economy. She first gave a brief presentation on the do's and don'ts of the publishing process, followed by a Q&A session on the various issues involved in publishing in academic journals. As a renowned scholar working on Islamic finance in Southeast Asia, she provided valuable insights on how to publish interdisciplinary work on Asia in academic journals.
Second, we held an 'Open Review' session with Fabian Pape (LSE) and Johannes Petry (Goethe University). The aim of this session was to take a closer look at what the review process actually looks like. To do this, we followed the life journey of one of our papers on the growing importance of Asia in global finance - from submission to publication. Prior to the session, we had distributed the (1) original paper, the (2) comments we received from editors and reviewers, and the (3) revised paper, along with the accompanying revision guide and cover letter. During the session, we first successfully discussed all the main steps and then used the remaining time for a final Q&A session.
We would like to thank all participants for the inspiring exchange and look forward to further ECR network events in the coming months!
IZO Early Career Researcher Network Workshop at Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, 16/17 February 2023
The aim was to exchange experiences in the field of practice-oriented China research and to develop new formats to improve the exchange of knowledge between academic research and political practice in China policy. Guest speakers and discussion partners included Björn Alpermann, Professor at the University of Würzburg, Mikko Huotari, Director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics) and Jens Brandenburg, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Further follow-up events in a similar format are already being planned for the end of the year and for spring 2024.
IZO Early Career Researcher Network Workshop with Prof. William A. Callahan, 27 January 2023
The IZO ECRN was honoured to welcome William A. Callahan, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science for an exclusive workshop at Goethe University Frankfurt on 27 January 2023. During the three-hour workshop, titled "How to understand China and understand the world: mixed methods approach", Prof. Callahan shared and discussed his essay on China's statecraft from the Ming Dynasty to the current Xi Jinping era and the role of imperialism/nationalism discourses through a cartographic approach.
The workshop participants raised a wide range of questions regarding Prof. Callahan's thoughts on studying China's foreign policy and related empirical research methods. We discussed conceptualising cultural implications into politics through Tianxia 天下 and explaining the concepts of civilisation vs nation. Prof. Callahan conceptualised his “imperial gaze" framework and exchanged ideas with the participants regarding China's claims in the South China Sea. In terms of discussing China's international role from an International Relations perspective, we discussed how to reconcile mainstream concepts like balancing, bandwagoning and hedging with the Chinese Communist Party's own specific United Front Work framework, and with its notion of “friendship" and identification of political enemies. Lastly, Prof. Callahan shared his mixed-methods approach to researching Chinese foreign policy strategy and some foreseeable challenges when China re-opens for scholars to conduct field research.
We thank Prof. Callahan again for the fruitful and lively discussion and thoughtful inspirations for our own research. We look forward to organising further ECRN events in the coming months.
Background Discussion with Prof. Barry Naughton (UCSD) at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, 29 October 2021
