The Department hosts a conference on Research Failure

Academia typically rewards slowly. Research can take years to develop from conception to publication, and not all ideas and manuscripts survive this process.  What are the most common factors that derail otherwise promising work? How can we better and more quickly identify the differences between setbacks, to be endured and overcome, and critical failings, that reveal a project to be no longer viable? What structures and processes help or hinder research in the political science community?

On 24-25 October, the Department hosts a mini-conference dedicated to the multitude of projects that political scientists have begun, and then, for whatever reason, abandoned. Organized by Gustav Meibauer together with Neil Renic (IFSH Hamburg) and Johanna Rodehau-Noack (Columbia University), the conference will feature a keynote roundtable and multiple panels over two days. The participants are invited to investigate typical challenges and hurdles to success, as well as strategies and structural changes needed to help sustain academic research through adversity. Right on time for the spooky season, the conference might even help revive some projects previously thought dead and buried…