ICCS Voluntary Work Placements

The focus of the research: Modern slavery in business supply chains is a major problem, as many workers in the global economy often toil away for extremely long hours in inhumane conditions without proper access to food, water or shelter.  In 2015, the UK Government passed the Modern Slavery Act, which among other things, mandates that global businesses formulate a statement about how they plan to identify and eradicate slavery in their supply chains.  We are interested to examine how businesses with strong reputations of efficacy and trustworthiness respond to the UK Modern Slavery Act. The project involves reading through collected business statements, analysing their content, and recording features of the business plan onto an excel database.  Additionally, the placement involves looking through electronic  databases to identify news stories about each business prior to their statement. 

What will you be doing?

• Online data collection (printed material)
• Content analysis of statements
• Bibliography searches on corporate social responsibility and modern slavery using university resources 

What skills will you need?

• Good communication skills
• Use of excel 

Learning Outcomes

The placement offers ample research training in content analysis research methodology. I will allow the student to develop and strengthen content analysis skills, time management and collaborative engagement in research. It will also strengthen knowledge with the topic under investigation and allow students to use the collected data for dissertation purposes.  

The project examines how citizens reason about the rights of asylum-seekers under conditions of heightened emotionality. This project addresses a pressing social and political issue, contributes to ongoing academic debates, brings together research in political science and psychology and paves the way for a comprehensive study on political tolerance and reasoning about ethnic minorities among the general population. The placement involves collating media materials involving human rights stories, analysing the content of the collected media materials, collating secondary survey data and collating related bibliographies. 

What will you be doing?

• Collect media content on human rights stories involving asylum seekers
• Analyse the content of collected material paying particular attention on emotionality present in stories
• Collate secondary survey data on human rights perceptions
• Conduct bibliography searches on tolerance, emotions, and human rights 

What skills will you need?

• Good communication skills
• Use of excel 

Learning Outcomes

The placement offers ample research training. I will allow the student to develop and strengthen media content analysis skills, survey questionnaire skills, time management and collaborative engagement in research. It will also strengthen knowledge with the topic under investigation and allow students to use the collected data for dissertation purposes.  

The project investigates the relationship between emotions generated in the context of mediation and the strategies mediators employ to arrive at favourable mediation outcomes. The project involves collating lists of mediators, conducting interviews (skype, phone, in person), transcribing interview material, and collating related bibliographies on emotionality and mediation practices. This project is an extension of existing work and newly collected data will be collated with existing data to analyse relationships between emotionality and mediation practices. 

What will you be doing?

• Collate mediator lists and contact info
• Arrange and conduct interviews
• Transcribe interview material
• Conduct bibliography searches on emotions and mediation using university resources 

What skills will you need?

• Good communication skills
• Use of excel 

Learning Outcomes

The placement offers ample research training in interviewing and research design. It will allow the student to develop and strengthen interpersonal and professional skills, time management and collaborative engagement in research. It will also strengthen knowledge with the topic under investigation and allow students to use the collected data for dissertation purposes.  

In Greece, the European economic crisis has heighted perceptions of personal and social injustice and economic hardship. Citizens express hostility towards international and national institutions, display lower opposition to, and often engagement with, political violence, hold low tolerance towards minorities and outgroups. These elements are fuelled and harnessed for electoral gain by populist anti-immigration, anti-EU, and anti-expert narratives and their representatives. As such, there is a direct link between reactionary political sentiment and populist electoral support, and this project seeks to explore this link conceptually and put it under rigorous empirical test.

The project will code and analyse focus group data of Greek populist party voters (already collected and available by Capelos) and transcribe and code materials from already conducted in-depth qualitative interviews in Greece (available by Capelos). Aim of the analysis is to map and identify the role of emotions on preferences for anti-immigration, anti-EU integration, and anti-expert sentiment. Additionally, the placement involves looking through electronic  databases to identify news stories about the issues and discussion points featured in the focus groups and interviews .

Competency in Greek language is essential for this project as the original data collected (focus groups and interviews) are in Greek. 

What will you be doing?

• Coding and transcribing of focus group and in-depth interview data (in Greek)
• Content analysis of news  stories (in Greek)
• Bibliography searches on emotions and populism 

What skills will you need?

• Good communication skills
• Use of excel 

Learning Outcomes

The placement offers ample research training focus group, in-depth interviewing and content analysis research methodologies. It will allow the student to develop and strengthen time management skills and collaborative engagement in research. It will also strengthen knowledge with the topic under investigation and allow students to use the collected data for dissertation purposes.  

What will you be doing?

The volunteer will play a key role in developing our understanding of ‘resilience’ in CVE/PVE by gathering the primary data (National Action Plans from key countries, regional intergovernmental organisations and UN documentation on PVE and CVE) and identifying and coding where and how ‘resilience’ occurs.  If time permits to transform this analysis into a report.

What skills will you need?

• Strong organisational skills, ability to handle large quantities of material.
• It is desirable (but not essential) if the candidate has working proficiency in written Arabic or French (where countries or INGOS write official documents in these languages). 

Learning Outcomes

The placement will help you build your data analysis skills, including the use of NVivo. 

What will you be doing?

To first identify a limited sample of C/PVE projects from across Europe and North America (as well as to establish inclusion and exclusion criteria). To identify within those projects how gender is included in their ideas of what causes violent extremism, to identify what efforts they make to include women (and at what stages). The project will then involve a comparative analysis and identify ‘good practices’. This is a ‘desk review’ of existing publically available material –including that produced by the practitioner community, policy makers, think tanks and academics. 

What skills will you need?

• Strong analytical skills, familiarity with feminist or gender based analysis.
• Ideally working familiarity with one or more European language (as well as English).

Learning Outcomes

The cores skills are developed through the operationalizing abstract concepts: that is mapping core ideas as they materialise in the policy and practitioner realms. The collaborator will develop their research design skills  (through case selection and variable identification) and comparative analytical skills (through looing at different programmes). 

This research will provide a rich, empirical illustration of the impact of the Prevent duty in civil society, specifically in primary education. It will allow for a better understanding of how effective Prevent training has been for teachers, as well as how easily teachers are able to understand the expectations placed upon them. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with primary school staff members as well as an extensive analysis of policy documents and of the secondary literature. 

What will you be doing?

• Transcription of interview recordings.
• Creation of interview summaries.
• Thematic coding of the interviews using the qualitative data analysis software package NVivo.

What skills will you need?

You will have basic understanding of qualitative research methodologies and an interest in counter-extremism.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the project, you will have gained the following skills:

• A thorough understanding of the Prevent strategy;
• Experience in transcribing and analysing qualitative data;
• Experience with the qualitative data analysis software package NVivo;
• Working both independently and as part of a research team. 

What will you be doing?

The placement requires a detailed analysis of the existing literature on cybersecurity threats and how far this literature draws on existing concepts in strategic studies. The volunteer would also examine the cyber-threat posed by Russia and China to the liberal order, and how this might be countered through different strategies, including confidence and security building measures and trust-building. 

Learning Outcomes

The placement will be able to develop and strengthen your skills at collecting research materials and triangulating different sources of data. The volunteer will also gain/strengthen their knowledge about the topic under investigation and will be able to use the collected data for dissertation purposes.  

Supervision 

Initial meeting with Professor Wheeler and by skype with Dr Holmes to discuss the objectives and learning outcomes. This will include an introduction to the project and the main sources to be examined, and an overview of the methodologies used. Professor Wheeler will be available throughout the placement to offer further advice and guidance. A debrief will be arranged at the end of the placement with Dr Holmes and Professor Wheeler to assess how the learning objectives have been achieved.

What will you be doing?

The volunteer will track using documentary sources, newspaper materials, and other secondary source materials the development of P5 meetings on the nuclear issue since the end of the Cold War. Research will focus on UN Security Council meetings, nuclear summit meetings, NPT Review Conference and Preparatory Committee meetings, as well as dedicated P5 nuclear dialogue meetings. 

Learning Outcomes

The placement will be able to develop and strengthen your skills at collecting research materials and triangulating different sources of data. The volunteer will also gain/strengthen their knowledge about the topic under investigation and will be able to use the collected data for dissertation purposes.  

Supervision

Initial meeting with Professor Wheeler and to discuss the objectives and learning outcomes. This will include an introduction to the project and the main sources to be examined. Professor Wheeler will be available throughout the placement to offer further advice and guidance. A debrief will be arranged at the end of the placement with Professor Wheeler to assess how the learning objectives have been achieved.

What will you be doing?

The placement would involve collecting materials on different state perceptions of armed drone strikes and the possibility of a European consensus. This would involve studying internal debates within key European states (UK, France, the Netherlands, and Germany), as well as the views of the European Parliament and the European Commission. The volunteer will also consider how far the UK position is similar/different to the US Government under both the Obama and Trump administrations, and how far there is a new legal consensus among the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ community (UK, USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand).

Learning Outcomes

The placement will be able to develop and strengthen your skills at collecting research materials and triangulating different sources of data. The volunteer will also gain/strengthen their knowledge about the topic under investigation and will be able to use the collected data for dissertation purposes.  

Supervision

Initial meeting to discuss the objectives and learning outcomes. This will include an introduction to the project and the main sources to be examined, and an overview of the methodologies used. Professor Wheeler will be available throughout the placement to offer further advice and guidance. A debrief will be arranged at the end of the placement to assess how the learning objectives have been achieved.