Research Strategy

Who are we in the Department of Political Science?

The Department of Political Science at Lund University is a large and diverse institution, which hosts three subjects: political science, peace and conflict studies, and intelligence analysis. The Department has strong research groups in the main areas of political science and consciously cultivates an open and pluralistic research environment. Our vision is to be a leading political science department in Europe that contributes to understanding, explaining, and improving our world. We strive to develop a research environment optimal for creative and ground-breaking research in all fields of political science as well as for cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, including peace and conflict, and intelligence analysis.

While seeking to deepen research in traditional sub-disciplines (international relations, comparative politics, political theory, and public administration), we consciously transcend boundaries between sub-disciplines and fields to encourage a wide range of theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of politics. Our research reflects methodological diversity, breadth, and depth – from interpretative and qualitative methods (such as discourse analysis, conceptual history, elite interviews, participant observation, and comparative case studies) to quantitative ones (such as experiments, surveys, text-as-data methods, and statistical methods). This pluralism is a strong aspect of our collective self-identity, and a vital condition for achieving research excellence. Research pluralism provides for cross-fertilisation, flexibility, and an openness to new ideas. Our diverse research competence makes us well-prepared to take on new societal challenges in an era of political crises.

Another strength is the interdisciplinary nature of much of our research. We have a strong track record of not only crossing boundaries between political science sub- disciplines but also of research collaboration beyond political science with scholars from other disciplines and faculties. The Department hosts peace and conflict studies and intelligence analysis, subjects that are truly interdisciplinary in nature. Many research groups and projects are interdisciplinary in character, building on strong experiences of cooperation with researchers and research groups from other disciplines such as economics, engineering, gender studies, geography, history, law, linguistics, natural sciences, medicine, philosophy, psychology, social work, sociology, and sustainability studies.

How is research organised in the Department?

Research is organised in the Department to achieve our vision in terms of quality, cohesion, funding, pedagogy, and engagement. Apart from a good background in attracting external funding and hiring talented scholars, research in the Department has benefited from strong research support functions (both academic and administrative). We have a well-established system for encouraging and supporting research applications, peer-reviewed research, and other types of publication support. Our researchers benefit from support by highly competent and committed administrative staff. The Department has a collegial and collective model of research governance and leadership. The core principle of leadership is to encourage, support, and facilitate bottom-up initiatives rather than attempting to steer research in a top-down manner. This policy is based on the conviction that research excellence must develop organically. This requires a strong culture of cooperation, something that is characteristic of our department. This has allowed for a creative research environment based on active sharing of knowledge amongst staff. There is a broad agreement in the Department that this social cohesion is a key asset when it comes to fostering a stimulating and productive environment, and that this is one of our comparative advantages.

This belief also has important implications for how we view the role of strategic planning of research in the Department. Since a pluralistic outlook on research topics and methods constitutes an important part of our identity, many of us are reluctant to single out specific research areas as particularly strong and deserving of institutional support. Instead, many agree that an emphasis on intellectual openness and dialogue will help foster a dynamic environment in which the seeds of future success are allowed to grow next to our current accomplishments without being overshadowed by them. Yet in fact, we are of course often forced to prioritise between different research areas, especially when it comes to recruitment. 

Where are we going? Our future goals

To be a leading political science department in Europe, we need to maintain our comparative advantages, overcome several challenges, and develop in certain areas. The following goals are central to our effort to further improve our research quality.

At the yearly kick-off seminar, the leadership will give an assessment of the economic outlook and the publication patterns of different research groups. Other issues can be discussed as well. 

1. Promoting high-quality research

The aim of promoting research quality in the Department is to strengthen its internal peer review systems (mainly within the different research groups) and facilitate the Research Committee in coordinating and disseminating knowledge of research and publication processes. The Department also recognises and rewards outstanding publication performances, not only on its website and on social media, but also by nominating outstanding publications for international prizes. However, there is still room for improvement. We have put a lot of effort into supporting research applications, but so far, we have focused somewhat less on publication strategies to increase the visibility and impact of our research. We are now in a situation where we need to do even more to encourage and facilitate a higher-quality research culture and publication. This implies a strategic focus on quality rather than quantity concerning research output. We should aim at increasing publication of articles in top journals and monographs at international university presses, keeping in mind the need to also maintain diversity in terms of publication outlets, including research dissemination in Swedish. The objectives of the Department of Political Science are to:

• Regularly and systematically disseminate knowledge of publication processes.
• Initiate a broad discussion on how we understand quality in research activity and output; how we can increase visibility and impact; how we can encourage a stronger focus on quality than quantity in our publication strategy; which journals we identify as top journals in different research fields; and what we can do to promote publication in these journals.
• Encourage publication in top journals and with university presses by disseminating knowledge of publishing experiences in such outlets.
• Initiate working seminars on papers to be submitted to peer-review journals and papers that have received a “revise and resubmit”. This can be done within specific research groups, but also across research groups.
• Duly recognise outstanding publication performances, for example, through nominations to book prizes.

2. Maintaining a sense of social cohesion and facilitating cooperation in a large and diverse research environment.

The aim of promoting research cohesion recognises that while we hold our pluralism to be a major asset, there is an obvious risk of fragmentation. The sheer size of the Department has made it increasingly difficult to sustain dialogue between scholars as well as between different research groups. We have struggled to maintain a high level of participation in the higher research seminar, which is to serve as an overarching platform between sub-disciplines. We still need to do more to safeguard the centrality of dialogues and bridge-building beyond specific research groups and projects. The objectives of the Department of Political Science are:

• Maintain the higher research seminar as a joint platform for all researchers at the Department.
• Continue to provide research retreats where research applications can be discussed.  
• Encourage cooperation in and across research groups.
• Seek funding for at least one large research programme that integrates several research groups. 

3. Maintaining the high inflow of external funding and focusing more on high-quality funding sources.

The aim of the Department is to improve on its solid record of attracting external funding. In recent years, we have received funding for several larger research programs and numerous projects. In fact, almost all our professors, lecturers, and postdocs have some external research funding. However, our dependence on external research funding is also a problem. There are increasingly limited resources available, and we are forced to devote extensive time to writing new applications rather than conducting research. Moreover, the current incentive structure for research funding privileges “low-risk” projects instead of scientific “risk-taking”, which potentially has a negative impact on the originality and novelty of the research produced in the Department. Nevertheless, we need to maintain a high inflow of external funding. We should take more coordinated initiatives to pool our expertise in different research areas in order to seek funding. The objectives of the Department of Political Science are:

• Continue to disseminate knowledge of how to write successful research applications and provide peer review of draft applications.
• Continue to encourage all kinds of research applications, also with external partners.
• Take joint initiatives with larger research applications that bring together researchers across research groups at the Department.
• Work more pro-actively on applications for grants such as grants from the Wallenberg Foundation, and the Swedish Research Council’s excellence program.
• Encourage more applications for ERC and EU grants. The Department and the Faculty shall consistently co-fund these grants. 
• Continue and deepen discussions about AI and research ethics.

4. Maintaining and further fostering synergies between research and teaching.

The aim of the Department is to improve synergies between research and teaching. The Department actively seeks to foster such synergies. In fact, our overarching approach to education is research-oriented, emphasising analytical research skills. Moreover, the department encourages the development of courses closely linked to ongoing research projects. While our students benefit from engagement with cutting-edge research, scholars receive vital student feedback and engage in discussions on research design, theories and empirical findings. Many scholars have experienced new research ideas developing in dialogues with students. One obvious link between research quality and education is the important contribution our PhD students make to our research environment. The research strengths of the Department benefit from the research conducted by our PhD students, independently or in collaboration with senior colleagues. PhD students contribute to the renewal of research and nurture the Department’s pluralistic research profile by exploring novel problems and empirical domains and applying new innovative perspectives. The objectives of the Department of Political Science are:

• Maintain the principle that all staff shall engage in both teaching and research.
• Improved the teaching of research-based courses.
• Have a strong focus on PhD students in all its efforts to facilitate creative and innovative research.

5. Working more strategically with outreach and collaboration outside academia to increase the societal impact of our research.

The aim of the Department is to ensure broad societal engagement in all phases of the research process that strengthens the societal relevance of our research and contributes to sharpening our analytical arguments. We already do quite a lot in terms of outreach and external collaboration, but this has so far mainly relied on individual initiatives. While maintaining this bottom-up approach, the Department should improve its strategic work in this area. We do not yet have a specific strategy or policy concerning “the third assignment”, and for the individual scholar, the value of such activities for career development is less clear than research and teaching activities. The objectives of the Department of Political Science are:

• Work more strategically with research collaboration outside academia.
• Continue to encourage and acknowledge various outreach activities.
• Initiate broad discussions on the societal impact of research and how we can work with this in all phases of the research process.

These goals and strategic actions imply that we improve the strategic research organisation at the Department. If we are to succeed, we must be able to scale up management and administrative capacity without becoming too controlling and bureaucratic. We need to nurture the collegial culture and bottom-up approach to research that have been part of our historical success, at the same time as we improve our capacity for strategic governance in the implementations of the goals we have identified as central for us to excel.

We also need to manage the potential tension between, on the one hand, high ambitions concerning a more targeted external funding strategy and more top-level publications and, on the other hand, the pluralistic ideal to which we adhere.

Striking this balance requires an ongoing, broad, inclusive, and open dialogue within the Department.