Hi everyone,

For those who don't subscribe to /The Political Methodologist/ (and you
should!), I'm re-posting a request for people to participate in an on-line
International Methods Colloquium for which I'm trying to obtain funding.
The full description follows:

In my experience, one of the toughest things about being a political
methodologist is often being the only member of the subfield in the
department. It’s not always true, of course, but I think that many
departments–even those with highly-ranked PhD programs–have one (or at most
two) people who identify their primary field as political methodology. This
means that we don’t necessarily have local colleagues that we can engage
with on methodological research problems, even to the extent of chatting
about new developments in our field. It also means that our opportunities
to see new methodological research are limited, as the majority of the
department’s talks will primarily engage the substantive questions and
interests of the other subfields. Fortunately, methodologists do have some
opportunities to learn, work, and talk together. The annual POLMETH
conference is always a highlight of my year, and the ICPSR and EITM summer
institutes provide the chance for advanced training.

But I think we can do a bit more.

In a couple of weeks, I’m submitting a grant to fund an International
Methods Colloquium. In brief, what I want to do is hold a weekly,
interactive, on-line research talk every week where a scholar presents his
or her methodological research to a live audience and interacts with that
audience via real-time questions and answers. It’s basically a weekly
research talk, except that we get together on-line because we’re scattered
all over the world. Somewhat less briefly:

With funding, I will develop, organize, and produce a weekly interactive
colloquium for methodological research in political science. I call this
the International Methods Colloquium (or IMC). This project will leverage
off-the-shelf, commercially-proven technology to bring methodologists in
political science and allied fields into interactive conversation with
scholars, students, and private researchers all over the world without
travel or venue costs for the participants. Presenters will be recruited
via professional websites, e-mail lists, and promotion at conferences;
applications to present will be collected via our website and vetted by the
advisory board. Viewers will be made aware of the weekly presentations via
similar channels. The initial focus of the IMC will be on methodological
work in political science, but once this base is established it will branch
out to include methodological work from statistics, economics, psychology,
and other quantitative social sciences.  Over time, demand from presenters
and viewers (and their supporting institutions) will make the IMC
financially self-sustaining.

My proposal is essentially complete, but I think it would be enhanced by
having a list of scholars who would be interested in presenting a talk to
the IMC, if it were funded. If you think this is the kind of thing you’d be
interested in, please shoot me an e-mail at
[log in to unmask] your interest. It’s a low-risk
commitment; all you’d be saying
is that if the IMC existed, you might want to give a talk (and that I can
put your name into my grant application). Of course, if I get the funding,
everyone on the list will have the first opportunity to get on board. All
levels of faculty and graduate students are welcome!

If you really want to go the extra mile and volunteer to be on the proposed
advisory board, you can e-mail me about that as well (faculty only, for
this role)! In this case, I’ll e-mail you with a bit more information so
that you know what you’re getting yourself into.

If you’re interested, let me know before Friday, January 10th; I need to
finish up this grant!


--

Dr. Justin Esarey
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Rice University
Voice: (678) 383-9629
Fax: (713) 348-5273
E-mail:  <[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
Web: www.justinesarey.com

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