PROGRAM

WHAT DOES THE PROGRAM OFFER?

The winner of the EURAC Federal Scholar in Residence program is granted a research stay of up to 3 weeks at the EURAC-Institute for Studies on Federalism and Regionalism, preferably in early February. EURAC is located in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen (South Tyrol), Northern Italy.

It comprises:

• The possibility to publicly present and to publish his/her work in the online series EDAP or one of the EURAC book series, if considered appropriate by the president of the jury
• A work place and free access to the EURAC Library, including online library services
• The use of our administrative structures (secretariat and project development service)
• A return ticket economic fare
• Accommodation in a single room in a standard guesthouse or in modern student halls of residence in centrally located areas of Bolzano/Bozen (within walking distance to EURAC)

NOTE: The single conditions are subject to prior agreement with the project manager and to EURAC’s internal rules of procedure. In any case, neither board nor a family allowance will be provided.

WHAT ARE THE RULES TO APPLY?

Applicants must hand in a not yet published manuscript and be ready to present the findings of their works publicly in English within the Institute's International Winter School on Federalism and Governance and in seminars at neighboring partner universities. To do so, the winner should thus be available to undertake his/her research stay during early February.

FORMAL REQUIREMENTS

Applications are to be sent directly to the program manager by 01 July, 15:00 CEST. Please note:

• an unpublished paper or manuscript can be submitted in English,German, Italian, French and Spanish; in accordance to the program's rules it is compulsory to insert the following declaration as a footnote in the submitted manuscript OR as a separate certification (with your signature): "I hereby confirm that the submitted work ( TITLE ) is not yet published."
• it has to be sent electronically and without any identifying information in it
• the applicant's knowledge of English must be at working level
• only full papers are accepted, no research plans (there is no rule concerning the length of the submitted work)
• a paper or manuscript can only be re-submitted if substantively revised
• an abstract in English, a short CV and a motivation letter of maximum 2 pages have to be sent in a separate document; in accordance to the Italian Law on personal data handling (decree 196/2003) make sure to attach the following consent to your CV: "I authorize EURAC to use my personal data in accordance to decree 196/2003."
• applications must be submitted via email only

The Program manager will reserve some days to check the accuracy of the received application and then sent a confirmation email.

The program manager guarantees anonymity throughout the evaluation period (double-blind peer review process).The paper or manuscript has to be sent without any identifying information in it. Please note that it is NOT the program manager's responsibility to strip any identifying information from the manuscript before handing it over to the jury's president. Unpublished manuscripts containing identifying information will simply be rejected. The same goes for incomplete applications.

The motivation letter should contain information on how the applicant intends to use his/her time at EURAC. For instance, it can contain a project idea in line with the Institute's research fields. Both biographical information and motivation letter will not be transmitted to the jury. They are essential for the preparatory phase of the program and in case of victory, but do not count for the selection process itself.

The winner will be contacted by mid-October at the latest. If the person ranked first is no longer interested in the program, the president of the jury and the program manager reserve the right to decide whether to grant the research stay to the person ranked second or not to awards the EURAC Federal Scholar in Residence position at all. Motivation letter and biographical information are taken into consideration in such cases. In absence of good applications, the jury's president reserves the right not to award the grant.

All candidates will in any case receive a short notice by mid-October. Any contact with the program manager is forbidden during the selection procedure.

SELECTION PROCEDURE

JURY AND SELECTION CRITERIA

The program manager forwards the unpublished manuscripts to both Professor Francesco Palermo, President of the international jury and Director of the EURAC-Institute for Studies on Federalism and Regionalism, and to the yearly jury members.

Depending on the submitted topic and the language of the paper or manuscript, experts and senior scholars are nominated from a pool of outstanding international experts. Their range of expertise covers the whole of comparative federalism, regionalism and intergovernmental research, from legal, political, social and economic perspective. The members of the jury are asked to evaluate the submitted works against the following criteria:

• innovation and creativity (significant originality and initiative)
• content (overall quality, clarity and long term scientific value for comparative federal research)
• practicalusefulness (consequentiality for institutional, political, social and economic reality)
• strategic value (relevance for efficient multilevel governance and institutional reforms)
• reliability (referring to the problem framing and, if applicable, to data collection methods)
• replicability (applying to data and broadly speaking to the entire reasoning process)
• methodological effectiveness (clear demonstration on how the work is consonant in its source disciplines/methodologies or on how the work effectively advances the understanding and inquiry of the submitted topic by weaving disciplinary perspectives together and developing novel methodological approaches that are balanced)

Please note that the jury's president and its members will receive the candidates' applications anonymously by the program manager. The jury members' work and deliberations are strictly confidential and any contact with the president of the jury is not permitted during the evaluation procedure.

The program manager will contact the winner by mid-October at the latest. The winner will also be announced on the EURAC web page and in the Institute's newsletter.

NOTE: During the selection process no emails will be answered by the program manager or the jury’s president. For general inquiries on the program before the deadline of submission, 01 July, please send an email.