Democratic Romania: its past, present and future
- annual awards for excellent research designs in the social sciences -
This project aims to encourage research in the social sciences with a special focus on Romania – where the strength and focus of social science research conducted by eminent scholars such as Dimitri Gusti, Constantin Radulescu –Motru, D. Draghicescu and others made pre-war Romanian social science world famous.
The project takes the form of an annual research competition in which up to three winning research designs that address the issue of “how and if democracy worked/works/will work in Romania” will receive awards in the form of seed-funding from the Ratiu Family Foundation sufficient to launch the proposed research projects, as well as nationwide publicity designed to assist award-winners in attracting additional research funding where necessary. The project is a joint initiative of the Ratiu Center for Democracy in association with the Center for the Study of Democracy at Babes Bolyai University’s Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences. A secondary goal of the project is to strengthen cooperation between theoreticians and practitioners involved in democratization processes.
Applications to participate in the competition are sought from all recognized social sciences, provided they rely on an excellent methodological design. While the focus of the competition is Romania, its scope is international, entries being welcomed without regard for their country of origin. However, in recognition of the competition’s international scope, the language for entries is English.Committed to their declared values, the project’s organizers, the Ratiu Center for Democracy and Babes Bolyai University’s Center for the Study of Democracy intend to disseminate the results of the competition to a wider audience, by inviting students, journalists and representatives of academic and governmental fields to participate in a series of widely publicized debates regarding the methodology, strategy and benefits of rigorous scientific research in the social sciences.
The “Democratic Romania: its past, present and future” grants challenge researchers of all ages and nationalities to propose the study of different aspects of Romanian social reality from various disciplinary perspectives while supporting them by providing necessary seed-funding. The organizers believe there will be important benefits for all those involved in such an undertaking effort, most important of all being the opportunity for social scientists, through their research, to provide alternative, independent expertise that can in future be relied upon as a resource for improving civic and institutional democratization efforts in Romania and elsewhere.
The application file will contain:
completed application form (please download from: www.ratiucenter.org ; www.democracycenter.ro
the schedule of the research;
detailed budget (on categories, items and organizations);
a brief description and a copy of every financial and other types of partnerships of the contributing supporting organizations;
detailed resume of the director of the project; detailed resume of each listed members of the team.
The deadline for sending the complete application file is 15.04.2007. The selected applicants are to be announced until 30.05.2007.
The application should be sent to: madalina.mocan@ratiucenter.ro, in electronic format within an e-mail with attached files, having as subjects: (name,surname of the director of the project – grant application).
For details regarding the conditions and other related issues, please contact:
Madalina Mocan, project coordinator, Ratiu Center for Democracy: madalina.mocan@ratiucenter.ro, madalina.mocan@gmail.com .
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