First work package (WP1) investigates the current situation and asks questions like these: How are Slovak political science departments embedded in global academia? How much and how often their members publish in the major international outlets as compared to national/regional ones? Do these scientists regularly attend major discussion events (i.e., conferences) or they only seldomly share results of their own research with their colleagues and when they do, they do it at domestic or regional event? Are political scientists from Slovak institutions cited in the major platforms for theoretical discussion (i.e., the"top" journals) or they are cited mostly by colleagues from their own departments? WP1 will collect data that will be able to provide answer to these and similar questions. Existing but also preliminary research (by the researcher himself and his colleagues) has argued that Slovak political science departments are internationalised only to a limited degree and the project is based on an expectation that WP1 will come to similar conclusion on the basis of a much more complex dataset when compared to existing research.
The second work package (WP2) builds on these expected findings and will examine possible reasons behind limited internationalisation of Slovak political science departments. This work package develops three main factors that can stand behind the current situation and examines these empirically with the help of quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (interviews) methods. While WP1 will develop a database of publications, citations, conference participation and other data connected to internationalisation, WP2 will develop a database of factors that have impact on limited internationalisation. Thanks to a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection WP2 will be able not only identify these factors, but also examine them in detail.
Third work package (WP3) will look at those Slovak political science departments that have managed - in spite of challenges identified in WP2 - to be successfully engaged in international level; study solutions to these challenges in the Czech Republic and also in other European countries. The main goal of WP3 is to identify best practices from those Slovak political science departments that have succeeded at internationalisation as well as from political science department in various other countries (the Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands, the UK) that have managed to internationalise and can therefore present 'success stories' (i.e., best practices).
Fourth work package (WP4) aims at identifying policy implications of this research. This will be chronologically the last WP and its role will the primarily to transfer gained knowledge from the whole project to the decision-makers (at state as well as university level) and broader public. It will focus on aggregating previous policy-oriented conclusions, interlinking partial implications, and provide general policy implications and recommendations for decision-makers. This WP will thus have primarily policy dimension and will serve as a connection of the project and its findings to broader discussion about Slovak higher education, its internationalisation, and policy changes needed to achieve better connection of Slovak academia to global research.
