Max Weber Programme for
Postdoctoral Studies

On the Move …

By Ramon Marimon, Director, MWP

The Max Weber Programme is 'on the move.' We are packing up and moving to the Badia Fiesolana, the historic building of the EUI and, not without nostalgia, leaving behind the historic building of the MWP. But looking ahead, the MWP will be well located within the Badia and Fellows will appreciate being close to the Library and other EUI facilities (Bar Fiasco?), while EUI researchers and faculty may also benefit from having the MWP, with its activities, on the EUI centre stage.
The packing up is also involving some permanent departures, even if almost no one is going too far. Giovanni Torchia and Nastos Pandelis will not move with the MWP. Susan Garvin is moving with the Programme, but just for a few weeks, since after September she will be able to ride her horse as much as she wants. The 'old equilibrium' where, from the early everyday morning, Pandelis was taking care of the Villa, Giovanni of the Bar and Susan of the MWP is now part of the MWP history, and it's good to know that she will do most of her riding in the Mugello, which hopefully will allow her to keep in touch. The only one moving a little further away is Alanna O'Malley, who after having learned so much about Academic Careers with ACO, is going to follow her own in the Netherlands. I am also moving with the Programme, but already packing most of my stuff to be sent to the Economics Department of the EUI, which I will join in full professorial capacity at the start of 2014, so not a great distance either…
The rest of the MWP team remains, with Karin Tilmans as Acting Director, from January 2014 until the new MWP Director, Richard Bellamy, arrives in full capacity in May 2014 (part time, January – April, 2014), Sarah Simonsen as the main Administrator of the MWP, and Ognjen Aleksic with the Programme full time from the beginning of the academic year.
Read More

Impact Evaluation of the MWP

By Alanna O'Malley, Academic Careers Observatory

From November 2012-May 2013, the Academic Careers Observatory (ACO) of the Max Weber Programme (MWP) carried out research on the career progression of former Max Weber Fellows (MWF) and non-Fellows, i.e. those who applied to the programme and either proved unsuccessful in their application or who declined the Fellowship. The central aim of this research was to assess whether or not the MWP has an impact on the academic labour market.
Information was collected on 481 post-doctoral academics, divided between former Fellows of the MWP and non-Fellows. This data pertained to the career progression and current job positions of the participants. The information on both groups was gathered from the application materials that were supplied to the MWP, and the internet search-engine Google, which was used to trace non-Fellows in particular. The results were stratified with the utilisation of various indicators including gender, occupational mobility and geographical mobility.
Read More

Welcome Fellows 2013-2014

On 2 September 2013 the 8th cohort of Max Weber Fellows arrives at the new premises of the MWP in the EUI main building, the Badia Fiesolana. A total of 32 new Fellows and 1 visiting Fellow join the MWP, while 10 current Fellows continue into their second year.
Of the 44 Fellows, 19 are women, 25 are men. When looking at the distribution by nationality, while Germany, Greece and the USA are represented by 6, 5 and 7 Fellows respectively, there is a spread, with a total of 21 different nationalities. Ethiopia is represented for the first time.
We look forward to welcoming them all.
Read more about the Fellows and their research here

Becoming a member of a "Young Academy".
What's the deal?

By Violet Soen, HEC Fellow 2008-2009

The Young Academy of Belgium (Flanders) was officially inaugurated on 29 March 2013, and I felt very honoured to form part of its first cohort. It brings together 40 academics, between three and ten years since achieving a PhD: some postdocs, others tenure-tracks, and some professors. It was the twentieth Young Academy to be founded! Considering the rapid spread of Young Academies worldwide, this might be an ideal moment to reflect upon what a 'young academy' could offer as an added value in the career of a young researcher.
For most of us, it has above all been an opportunity to escape our day-to-day work, for me this means the history department in Leuven, and to meet new colleagues at similar career stages, but with very (if not completely) different research interests and affiliations. Very much like the Max Weber Programme, a Young Academy offers interdisciplinary meetings (and coffee breaks!), broadening the scope of your own discipline and university. It is exactly this mix in institutional and disciplinary backgrounds that provides the necessary background for our mission in the academic field of Flanders: enhancing the possibilities of young PhDs at the very start of their academic careers.
Read More

Law and neuroscience at the EUI

by Sofia Moratti, LAW Fellow 2011-2013
(www.sofiamoratti.eu)

Cognitive neuroscience – a field of scientific knowledge that has developed rapidly in the past decade – is the study of the neurobiological bases of higher mental abilities, including language, reasoning, intention, memory and perception. Recent progress in cognitive neuroscience can have a direct impact on improving the work of courts in making judgments of lack of criminal responsibility in cases of insanity. This question is attracting an increasing amount of interdisciplinary, international scholarly, and media attention, among legal experts, behavioural scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers.
Read More

ACO Attends European Conference
on Researcher Mobility

By Alanna O’Malley, Academic Careers Observatory

The Academic Careers Observatory (ACO) was represented at the Researcher Careers and Mobility Conference in Dublin in May by the Academic Assistant for ACO, Alanna O'Malley.
O'Malley was one of 15 winners of a travel bursary competition to attend the conference. The application for the bursary competition comprised of a 3 minute video which discussed how the research agenda of ACO was relevant to the aims of the conference.
Organised as part of the Irish Presidency of the European Union, the conference aimed to examine how the development of the European Research Area (ERA) is progressing, and what challenges remain for researchers in Europe. Researchers at various stages of their careers were invited to give their personal experiences of their careers to date, planning, mobility, Marie Curie Fellowships, and more.
Read More

The Max Weber Programme 2006 – 2013
The Villa La Fonte years

The Max Weber Programme team is in the process of preparing a 7-year report, which will summarize the most relevant features of the Programme in its first seven years. From September 2006, when the Programme opened its doors at Villa La Fonte to the first cohort of 40 Max Weber Fellows, to the summer of 2013 when the MWP faces a number of major changes. From the start Villa La Fonte was the home and a meeting point of the MWP, it has provided a beautiful place in which to reflect, discuss and work, and has given character to the MWP. In the end, however, what characterizes the MWP in these first years are: the Max Weber Fellows, the MWP activities and the people who have made them possible.
Read More

Events

Upcoming Events

'The Academic Contract: How Careers
and Institutions are Changing'
Badia Fiesolana, 20 November 2013

On 20 November 2013, the Academic Careers Observatory (ACO) of the Max Weber Programme will hold its 8th annual conference on issues pertaining to the academic job market. This year's conference is titled, 'The Academic Contract: How Careers and Institutions are Changing.'
The conference will examine the various dimensions of the academic contract and how it is evolving, from the point of view of both the individual and the university. It will analyse the current status of both academics and institutions, and incentives for change, together with the way in which these affect academic careers.
Across four panels bringing together academics from different university systems, different regions and different career stages, the conference will discuss the current system, including the challenges of online teaching, from a comparative perspective. To conclude, participants will reflect on the desired path for future change. For further information contact Tamara.Popic@eui.eu

Max Weber Lectures 2013-2014

The Max Weber Lectures for
2013-2014 are set, and the series includes an impressive list of scholars, including the new EUI President, Joseph Weiler, and two Nobel prize winners.

See more below and on the MWP web pages:

16 October 2013: Joseph Weiler, European University Institute
27 November 2013: Martin Hellwig, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
11 December 2013: John M. Najemy, Cornell University
15 January 2014: Martin Riesebrodt, Graduate Institute in Geneva
19 February 2014: Theda Skocpol, Harvard University
19 March 2014: Mary Nolan, New York University
16 April 2014: Bo Rothstein, University of Gothenburg
21 May 2014: Stanley Fish, Florida International University
18 June 2014: Roger Myerson, University of Chicago

For more information about other upcoming events see the Activities page on the MWP website

Recent Events

'From the League of Nations to the United Nations'
MWP Conference, 21-23 March 2013, Villa La Fonte

For 21-23 March 2013, two Max Weber Fellows, Simon Jackson, and Konrad Lawson, alongside Antara Halder from the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Alanna O'Malley from the Academic Careers Observatory, and Natasha Wheatley from Columbia University, organised a ground-breaking conference on the League of Nations and the United Nations. Hosted by the Max Weber Programme, the Global Governance Programme and the Department of History and Civilisation, the conference received an enormous response to its call for papers, with over 150 applicants. Read More

Machiavelli's Il Principe at 500
7th MWP Classics Revisited Conference
7-8 May 2013, Villa La Fonte

This year’s annual Classics Revisited conference was on Machiavelli, in celebration of the fifth centenary of the publication of his classic, Il Principe. The conference ran for two days, 7-8 May 2013, and was held at Villa La Fonte. The aim of the conference was to approach Machiavelli from an interdisciplinary as well as international perspective. To that end, speakers were invited from New Zealand, Buenos Aires, the US, Canada, and throughout Europe, and they touched on a range of topics including the family, early-modern political economy, the euro crisis, the city-state, and Machiavelli’s reception in Japan.
Speakers included: Anna Becker (Universität Basel), Jeremie Barthas (Queen Mary, University of London), Elias Palti (University of Buenos Aires), Konrad Lawson (EUI, MWF), Martin van Gelderen (Lichtenberg Kolleg Göttingen), J. Matthew Hoye (EUI, MWF), Jonathan Scott (University of Auckland), who was presented by Karin Tilmans (MWP, EUI), Philippe Schmitter (emeritus EUI), and Aidan Regan (EUI, MWF). Read More

7th Max Weber Fellows' June Conference
12-14 June 2013

The 2013 June conference of the Max Weber Programme brought past and present Fellows together under the roof of Villa La Fonte for the fourth time, and was the biggest conference so far in terms of the number of Fellows returning and the number of presentations. A total of 40 former Fellows, representing all seven cohorts and the four disciplines came back to Villa La Fonte for the last time.
The conference provided a perspective on the Max Weber Fellows' contributions to the Social Sciences and Humanities in research and academia. It was also a forum for the fostering of cross-disciplinary and inter-cohort academic collaboration, and for reflection on the MWP experience and academic experiences in teaching and in the job market, to the benefit also for future cohorts of Fellows. Read More

Career Moves

Firat Cengiz, LAW Fellow 2008-2009, was awarded a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant for her project titled, 'Anchoring the Consumer: Legitimacy and Accountability in Competition Law'. This four year interdisciplinary, empirical project will look into the participation of citizens in the making of competition policies in the EU and the US.		Sheila Neder Cerezetti, LAW Fellow 2011-2012, has recently been appointed Professor at the Commercial Law Department of the University of São Paulo Law School.
Catherine Fletcher, HEC Fellow 2010-2011, has moved on to a position as Lecturer in Public History at the University of Sheffield, UK.		Ana Hosne, HEC Fellow 2010-2011, has moved on to a Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Heidelberg.
Heather Jones, HEC Fellow 2007-2008, has been promoted to Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science.		Lei Ji, ECO Fellow 2011-2012, has been appointed assistant professor for a joint position in OFCE Sciences-PO and Skema Business School.
Alicia Perez-Alonzo, ECO Fellow 2006-2007, will be from November 2013 IBERDROLA Foundation Research Fellow, Universidade de Vigo & Economics for Energy, Spain.		Miriam Ronzoni, SPS Fellow 2008-2009, has been appointed Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Manchester, UK.
Christian Schemmel, SPS Fellow 2009-2010, Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Manchester, UK.		Kristin Surak, SPS Fellow 2010-2011, was awarded a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant for her project titled, 'Anchoring the Consumer: Legitimacy and Accountability in Competition Law'. This four year interdisciplinary, empirical project will look into the participation of citizens in the making of competition policies in the EU and the US.
Temel Taskin, ECO Fellow 2010-2011, has been appointed Economic Counselor, Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the OECD, in addition to working as an economist at the Central Bank of Turkey.		Inés Valdez, SPS Fellow 2011-2012, has been appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University, USA.
Andrea Wechsler, LAW Fellow 2011-2013, will move from September 2013 on to an Assistant Professor position at the Hanken School of Economics, Finland.