Past events

Past MethodsNET and MethodsNET endorsed Training Events

3rd Fall Methods Workshops hosted by Aarhus University, Denmark, October 16-20, in-person (MethodsNET Event)

Two week-long PhD level courses will be offered at this year’s Fall Methods Workshops, hosted by the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University and organised by the Methods Excellence Network (MethodsNET):

The Fall Methods Workshops week-long courses combine discussions of cutting-edge developments within a particular method with detailed feedback and discussion of the methodological aspects of your own research project and those of other participants. Participation in a workshop will bring you to the next level in your understanding of how to use a method in practice in relation to your research question. The courses are aimed at PhD scholars and junior researchers (post-doc or above) whose research is at a more advanced stage. Class sizes are kept small in the workshops. Classes will be from 9.00 to 16.00 from Monday to Friday.


In addition to the workshops themselves, there will be several cross-cutting lunch sessions for all participants in which key methods and design issues are debated across different methodological approaches (variance-based, case-based and interpretive). The goal of the cross-cutting sessions are to enable participants to better understand research findings from different traditions, and to communicate findings to scholars working in other traditions. The topics include: foundational assumptions (ontological and epistemological) across different approaches, making inferences, and whether and how generalizations can be made.

Free Introductory session “Mapping of methods in social sciences : How to handpick the methodological toolbox(es) that meet(s) your needs?” (Online, September 12, 2023)

The UCLouvain (Belgium) is hosting the EUVIP Methods Skill-Building Workshops, an event organized as part of the EU funded EUVIP project (EU in a volatile Indo-Pacific) with the support of the ISPOLE Institute through the "Capacity Building ISPOLE" project.  This four-day workshop series aims to equip PhD students with essential research methods in the field of social sciences.

The Introductory session “Mapping of methods in social sciences : How to handpick the methodological toolbox(es) that meet(s) your needs?” is also open online to anyone interested! We have the pleasure to welcome Professor Benoît Rihoux (UCLouvain & MethodsNET), who will give us an overview of the various existing political science (and social sciences, more broadly) methods. Interested? Join us online !

Please register by filling in the short form by Wednesday September 6, 2023

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079069 — EUVIP — HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03.

The 27th edition of the Summer School organized by the Institute of Communication and Public Policy, Università della Svizzera italiana in close cooperation with FORS, the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, is the first endorsed partner event of MethodsNET. As in previous years, it offers around twenty full-time workshops in two weekly sessions (in mid-August), ranging from Conducting a Grounded Theory Study to Designing and Conducting Social-scientific Experiments and Web Scraping and Data Mining with R.

Participants are PhD students, junior and senior researchers and practitioners from all over the world, working in a wide range of scientific disciplines: Psychology, Educational, Business Studies, Communication, Political Science, Sociology, Health Sciences, and many others.

All workshops are oriented towards practical applications and spend roughly half of the allocated ∼35 hours of tuition on applied work and exercises. There is ample time to discuss and try to solve problems related to the individual work and research projects with instructors and fellow participants. Whenever possible, participants are strongly encouraged to work on their own data and research problems to get the most out of the Summer School experience.

The Summer School instructors are renowned specialists and experienced and enthusiastic teachers in their respective fields, and they will organise their courses in order to optimise opportunities for practical help and advice during the workshops.

See Full program and registration (open until July 14).

This event comprises 4 courses (3 in-person, 1 online). It provides a unique opportunity for researchers, clinician scientists, and trainees to hone their research methodology skills. Students are mentored by methods researchers through lectures, workshops, and peer-to-peer teaching. Students will develop their abilities to design, conduct, and critically evaluate research.

2nd Summer School in Social Research Methods (3SRM) - June 19-30, 2023 (in-person) + June 12-16 (online), hosted by Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands (MethodsNET Flagship Event)

38 specialized PhD-level main courses, in-person (week 1: June 19-23; week 2: June 26-30) covering the full span of methods from big data to statistical to comparative/case-based to interpretive/qualitative, plus some foundational courses; these are preceded by two pre-week 1 online software courses (June 12-16). The registration fee also includes access to an all-day educational program, with leading experts teaching 5 free short courses on philosophy of science, research approaches and designs, math refresher, data visualization and the handling of missing data. The package also includes a lively 'Methods Café' to cross perspectives, and free lunches :-). Join us at our flagship event organized in collaboration with the Radboud Summer School and the Nijmegen School of Management! All info on the event website. 

Look at our 2023 3SRM course offer below -- the broadest and most pluralistic offer worldwide, with multiple useful week 1 - week 2 sequences. 

Discover the Summer School flyer and the bird's eye view programme, enabling you to identify useful week 1 - week 2 sequences (there are many!). And watch the video on our YouTube channel explaining in short the whole logic of the programme, training package and pedagogy.

Pre-Week 1 Online Software Courses (June 12-16)

Foundational Courses

Interpretive/Qualitative Approaches

Case-based & Comparative Approaches


Statistical Approaches

Big Data Courses

Graduate School for Social Research (GSSR), Warsaw - Poland, course on Generalized Linear Models (GLM) – March 20-24, 2023 (in-person)

From Monday, March 20, to Friday, March 24 2023, the Graduate School for Social Research, GSSR, of the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institutes of Philosophy and Sociology (IFiS), Political Studies (IPS) and Psychology (IP), organizes the methodological course General Linear Models, GLM. This course is offered within the Methods Excellence Network, MethodsNET. 

We invite PhD students in the social sciences at Higher Education Institutions (HEI) outside of Poland to apply for funding for travel and accommodation to participate in the GLM course at GSSR (up to 12 scholarships). Travel scholarships to GSSR are made possible by the PROM program of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange, NAWA.

Konstanz Methods Excellence Workshops (KOMEX) – March 2-10, 2023 (in-person & online)

Running for a second time, the courses are designed to provide participants with excellent, inclusive, and affordable methods training and bring the methodological aspects of their research projects to the next level. Visit the KOMEX website!


In-person courses (March 6-10): Comparative Case Study Design (Eva Thomann), Mathematics for Political Science (Jan Vogler), Applied Data Management for Social Scientists (Eda Keremoglu, Anna-Lena Hönig), Crowd-Sourced Text Analysis (Alex Horn, Martin Haselmayer)


Online courses (March 6-10): QCA (Ioana-Elena Oana, Carsten Q. Schneider), Introduction to Causal Process Tracing (Derek Beach), Introduction to Interpretive Research (Mathilde Cecchini), Survey Design (Levente Littvay)


Online Short Course (March 2-3): A Basic Introduction to R for Beginners (Akos Mate)

Fall Methods Workshops hosted by Aarhus University, Denmark (Oct 17-21 & Nov 7-11, in-person)

PhD level week long, all-day workshops in interpretive research, process-tracing methods, qualitative comparative analysis, (Oct 17-21) ethnographic methods, qualitative interviewing and structural equation modeling (Nov 7-11) will be offered at this year’s Fall Methods Workshops, hosted by the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University and organised by the Methods Excellence Network (MethodsNET). 

The workshops are designed to bring the methodological aspects of your research project to the next level. 

More info here.

(Event also included the academic coordinator strategic meeting. See Benoit Rihoux, Cai Wilkinson & Levi Littvay below on Aarhus campus.) 

Summer School in Social Research Methods (3SRM) - June 20-July 1, 2022, hosted by Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands (MethodsNET Flagship Event, In-person) 

Bring your research to the next level at the Summer School in Social Research Methods. Unique venue, and besides world-class methods courses taught by top pedagogues, with small-group interaction and individual tutoring, you get even more. 32 world-class PhD-level interactive courses spanning the full range of social scientific methods plus a rich cross-cutting afternoon academic program, 

Methods Cafes, and a variety of social events. Lunch is included with the registration. Event in collaboration with Nijmegen School of Management and Radboud Summer School. Click Here for Our Flyer. -- Information and Registration Here.

Ecole interdisciplinaire outils et méthodes, Aug 29-Sep 3, 2022

The 2nd edition of the EIOM, jointly organized by the École supérieure d’études internationales (ESEI) and the Chaire de leadership en enseignement des sciences sociales numériques (CLESSN), takes place at the Université Laval (Québec), 29 August – 3 September 2022. 

It aims at promoting empirical research methods in the Francophone academic sphere. This 1-week, French-language intensive program consists of three parallel training streams (mixed methods, data science, causal inference) complemented by some transversal workshops.

Summer Institute in Innovative Methodologies - June-July, 2022, hosted by McGill University in Montréal, Canada (Online). 

Registration for the annual methods-oriented McGill Summer Institute is open! You can register for 1 or more of the courses offered via the registration portal, here.


This year’s courses are:

Konstanz Methods Excellence Workshops (KOMEX) – March 10-18, 2022 (mostly in-person*)

Ph.D. level courses in Comparative Case Study Design, Designing observational research for causal inferences, Crowdsourced Text Analysis, Qualitative Comparative Analysis using R, and a basic R introduction will be offered at this year’s Konstanz Methods Excellence Workshop (KOMEX), organized by the University of Konstanz in collaboration with MethodsNET. 


The courses are designed to provide participants with excellent, inclusive, and affordable methods training and bring the methodological aspects of their research projects to the next level. Some online preparatory workshops will be offered March 10-11. (*) for the courses planned as in-person: if the corona rules do not allow for this, they will be switched to online)   Click here for more information.

FREE MINI-COURSE: ‘A Short Introduction to Process Tracing Methods’ - February 24, 2022 (online 14.00 – 15.30 CET)

The aim of this short introductory session is to provide participants with an understanding of the core elements of Process tracing methods and how they can be used in practical research. Process tracing is a research method designed to learn how things work in real-world cases. Increasingly used across the social sciences and in applied policy evaluation, process tracing involves unpacking causal processes as they play out within cases and tracing them empirically, enabling within-case causal inferences about the processes that link causes and outcomes together.

The session begins with an introduction of the theory-side of what we are actually tracing, followed by a discussion of what types of empirical evidence can be used to trace causal processes (aka mechanisms). We will use the example of the article by Winward (2020) to illustrate what Process tracing can look like in practice. The final part of the session introduces principles of case selection and generalization. After this, there will be plenty of time for questions from participants.

Interested participants should send a message to derek@ps.au.dk to register, after which you will receive a Zoom link. The course will take place using Zoom.

Suggested readings:

• Beach (forthcoming) Process Tracing Methods in Social Science. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Revised edition.

• Winward M. 2020. Intelligence Capacity and Mass Violence: Evidence From Indonesia. Comparative Political Studies, 54(3-4):553-584.


Hilde van Meegdenburg is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University. Her substantive research focusses on international security and state foreign policy making with a particular focus on the organization of foreign aid and military interventions. Hilde has taught numerous advanced and introductory courses on process tracing and qualitative case studies throughout Europe and is currently coauthoring a book with Patrick A. Mello on how to combine Process Tracing methods with Qualitative Comparative Analysis. For more information see: hildevanmeegdenburg.com

Derek Beach is a professor of Political Science at the Aarhus University, Denmark, where he teaches case study methodology, international relations, and European integration. He has authored articles, chapters, and books on research methodology, referendums, and European integration, and co-authored the books Process-tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines and Causal Case Studies (both with University of Michigan Press). He has taught qualitative case study methods at ICPSR, ECPR and IPSA summer and winter schools, and numerous workshops and seminars on process tracing methods throughout the world. He is also an academic manager of the Methods Excellence Network (MethodsNet).




FREE MINI-COURSE: Introduction to Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) webinar – February 10, 2022 (online)

The 'Introduction to NCA' webinar will help participants who are completely new to NCA to get a first understanding of ‘What is NCA’?. Panellists: Jan Dul and Caroline Witte, Rotterdam School of Management, The Netherlands. This webinar is free of charge. 


To facilitate participants from different time zones the webinar will be offered twice: 09:00am to 10:30am (UTC+1 = CET) and 17:00pm to 18:30pm (UTC+1 = CET). This webinar is organized by the Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERiM). Click here for more information.



Ecole interdisciplinaire outils et méthodes (EIOM) at Université Laval, Québec (in-person online + hybrid, January 3-8, 2022)



[French-language event. English-language description below]


L’École supérieure d’études internationales (ESEI) et la Chaire de leadership en enseignement des sciences sociales numériques (CLESSN) s’associent pour la création de l’École interdisciplinaire outils & méthodes (EIOM) de l’Université Laval (Québec), dont la première édition se tiendra du 3 au 8 janvier 2022 (présentiel + hybride). L’EIOM a pour objectif la promotion des méthodes de recherche empirique dans le milieu académique francophone. L’EIOM offre des cours d’une qualité rivalisant avec les meilleures écoles d’enseignement méthodologique d’Amérique du Nord et d’Europe afin d’en faire un événement annuel à ne pas manquer.



L’EIOM offre un perfectionnement méthodologique pour les étudiant·e·s des cycles supérieurs et les professionnel·le·s qui désirent approfondir leurs connaissances techniques et méthodologiques. L’EIOM offre également une opportunité de partage des connaissances dans un réseau interdisciplinaire de chercheur·e·s à travers des conférences et d’autres activités sociales.




L’EIOM propose trois parcours sous forme de séminaires : (1) Terrain et études de cas comparées ; (2) Modélisation et prédiction ; et (3) Causalité et expérimentation. Ces parcours sont également accompagnés d’ateliers de perfectionnement sur les outils de recherche, ainsi qu’une série de conférences.


Toutes informations et inscriptions: https://eiom.ca/ 


[English]


The Graduate School in International Studies (ESEI) and the Leadership Chair in the Teaching of Digital Social Science (CLESSN) propose the Interdisciplinary School in Tools & Methods (EIOM) at Université Laval, in Québec City (in-person + hybrid). Its first edition will take place on 3-8 January 2022. The objective of the EIOM is to promote empirical research methods in the French-speaking academic world. The EIOM offers methodological training for graduate students and professionals who wish to deepen their technical and methodological knowledge. The EIOM also provides a networking opportunity within an interdisciplinary network of researchers through conferences and other social activities. The EIOM’s working language is French.


Fall Methods Workshops, Aarhus University  – November 15 – 19, 2021 (in-person)

Ph.D. level courses in Qualitative interviewing, Process-tracing methods, and Multilevel modelling will be offered at this year’s Fall Methods Workshop, hosted by the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University and organized by the Methods Excellence Network (MethodsNET). The courses are designed to bring the methodological aspects of research project to the next level. Click here for more information.


UPDATE: The MethodsNet Fall Methods Workshops were successfully held at Aarhus University from the 15th to 19th of November. Three in-depth, all-day courses were run (interpretive interviewing, multilevel modelling, and process tracing). Participant evaluations are very positive, with comments noting "the rich interaction", "amazing course", and "engaged and inspiring" teaching. The workshops are planned to return next fall, with a few new courses added.  Picture (participant Lin Gao from Hertie presenting her research in the Process Tracing Workshop).