Events on “Open Political Science”
May 8, 2025 7:16 AM
The principles of Open Science are becoming increasingly important - in political science as well as in other disciplines. Open science stands for transparent, comprehensible and accessible research processes. It promotes the quality of scientific work and corresponds to the guidelines of good scientific practice of the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Open Science encompasses far more than just free access to scientific publications (Open Access). It concerns a broad spectrum of fields of action: the open handling of research data (Open Data), the provision of freely accessible teaching materials (Open Educational Resources), the use and development of free software (Open Source), the establishment of transparent peer review procedures (Open Peer Review) and the disclosure of research designs and analysis methods (Open Methodology).
fig.1: six principles of open science
Research funders are also increasingly recognizing the importance of these principles: Many calls for proposals already focus on open data standards, transparent methods and the reusability of results.
Accordingly, political scientists are also faced with the task of shaping their research processes in line with the principles of open science right from the start. This also means a cultural change within the discipline - towards more openness, participation and quality awareness. The German Political Science Association (GPSA) sent a strong signal with its statement in February 2024: it is clearly committed to the paradigms of Open Science and supports their implementation in the discipline.
In order to actively shape this change, Pollux - Fachinformationsdienst Politikwissenschaft offers various subject-specific webinars and online workshops on the topic of Open Science. The events are aimed at all political science researchers - regardless of qualification levels or methodological approaches.
Dates of events: Open political science
May 14th, 1-2 p.m. Webinar
Open Peer Review with SOCIOS
SOCIOS is a preprint server for the social sciences and promotes scientific communication through open peer review and collaborative work. What does this mean and how can SOCIOS help me to publish my scientific contributions faster and more sustainably while getting feedback from other scientists? That's what this webinar is about. After a brief presentation of the motivation behind Open Peer Review, we will look at how a manuscript can be submitted on the SOCIOS platform, how feedback can be provided in the form of reviews and comments and where SOCIOS fits into the publication landscape. At the end, there will be a brief look into the future of the project and time for Q&A.
June 2nd, 1-2 p.m. Webinar (English)
Open Political Corpora: Structuring, Searching, and Analyzing Political Text Collections with PoliCorp
We are excited to announce that a webinar on Open Political Corpora will take place soon! In this session, we will present Pollux Political Corpora – PoliCorp, an advanced resource that offers researchers structured and searchable access to processed political corpora. The platform currently contains a collection of transcripts of Bundestag debates, spanning 76 years of parliamentary debates - from September 1949 to February 2025. A demo version of PoliCorp is available for trial at: https://demo-pollux.gesis.org/
The webinar will cover:
- Accessing and working with open political corpora in PoliCorp
- Key features and use cases of PoliCorp
- Practical demonstrations for research and analysis
This event is intended for researchers, students, and anyone interested in political text analysis and will be in English.
June 12th 1-3 p.m.: Workshop
“Visible, open, science-led: Developing your own publication strategy”. Open Access workshop for political scientists
Open Access by now is a well-known and widespread publication model in political science, which gives authors better visibility of their publications and promotes the reception of scientific findings. In view of the various open access models (Gold OA, Green OA, Diamond OA, etc.), it is often difficult for researchers to choose a suitable publication strategy. At the same time, there are also a number of financial and legal issues associated with the various OA models.
The workshop is primarily aimed at political scientists in the qualification phase and aims to provide basic knowledge about current open access publication models and variants. In addition, participants will be supported in developing publication strategies that (1) are conducive to their personal careers and (2) are also in line with the idea of open science.
The workshop is organized by the DVPW in cooperation with open-access.network and the FID Politikwissenschaft - Pollux.
Free registration - also for non-members - is possible via the DVPW portal until June 10th.
June 17th/18th and July 3rd/4th: Workshop series
Data matters! Managing Research Data in Political Science
Whether surveys, interviews, observations, or policy documents: political science research relies on diverse types of data. A responsible approach to managing research data is becoming increasingly important: not only due to requirements from research funders, university and publisher policies, but above all in the interest of good scientific practice. Research data management (RDM) contributes to quality assurance, transparency, and the recognition of scholarly work while also promoting data reuse.
The workshop series "Data matters! Managing Research Data in Political Science" offers an introduction to RDM tailored to the specific needs of political science. It is particularly aimed at early career researchers with little or no experience in RDM, but is open to interested participants at all career stages. The workshops are divided into two modules. Module 1 focuses on quantitative data such as survey data, standardized measurements, or statistics. Module 2 addresses qualitative research data, including expert interviews, participant observations, focus groups, or documents. Participants may register for one or both modules depending on their needs. Researchers working with mixed-methods designs are encouraged to attend both modules. The workshops will cover core RDM concepts, including handling personal data, informed consent, anonymization and pseudonymization, contextualization, copyright issues, and options for publishing research data or using secondary data. In addition to content-focused input, the workshops offer opportunities to exchange ideas on individual projects and engage in hands-on exercises.
The event is organized by Pollux – the Specialized Information Service for Political Science, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, the research data center Qualiservice, and KonsortSWD – NFDI4Society.
Participation is free of charge, and the workshops will take place online via Zoom. You may register for one or both modules. Please note: the workshops will be conducted in German.
Module 1: Quantitative Data
June 17th - 1-4 p.m
June 18th - 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Click here to register for module 1.
Module 2: Qualitative Data
July 3rd - 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
July 4th - 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.