1.
SORA as a „strange bedfellow“ 24. 11. 2008 4th Forum European Higher Education Area Bologna Office

2.
Why a strange bedfellow? History <ul><li>Applied empirical social research is outside university due to exclusion of Jews and social democrats by Christian and Nazi governments from the university before, during and after WWII </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Paul Lazarsfeld </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Marie Jahoda </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Paul Neurath </li></ul></ul>

3.
SORA - Staff <ul><li>21 staff, 17 university graduates </li></ul><ul><li>Educated in: </li></ul><ul><li>Sociology 6 </li></ul><ul><li>Politics 6 </li></ul><ul><li>Psychology 3 </li></ul><ul><li>Statistics / Meth. 2 </li></ul><ul><li>Journalism 2 </li></ul><ul><li>Linguistics 2 </li></ul><ul><li>Education 1 </li></ul><ul><li>working on ~65 projects in 12 research fields per year </li></ul><ul><li>similar to ~ 100 SME social research organisations as employers of about 900 (rough estimation) </li></ul>

4.
SORA = applied social research <ul><li>Voting behaviour </li></ul><ul><li>Political culture </li></ul><ul><li>Communication strategies </li></ul><ul><li>Civic Education </li></ul><ul><li>Labour Market Integration </li></ul><ul><li>Social Inclusion </li></ul><ul><li>Labour market quality </li></ul><ul><li>Health </li></ul><ul><li>Housing </li></ul><ul><li>Regional & urban development </li></ul><ul><li>Consumer protection </li></ul><ul><li>Market research </li></ul>

5.
SORA consultancy <ul><li>Election campaigns </li></ul><ul><li>Communication strategies </li></ul><ul><li>Organisational development </li></ul><ul><li>Market strategies </li></ul><ul><li>Policy development </li></ul>

6.
SORA teaching <ul><li>9 of us teaching on University (methods) </li></ul><ul><li>SOQUA – Postgraduate training course for job starting social scientists </li></ul><ul><ul><li>extra-occupational </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>together with ZSI and FORBA </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Special Courses (f.e. journalists, politicians) </li></ul>

7.
SORA Human Resource Management <ul><li>HRM </li></ul><ul><li>competence inventory (actually not applied) </li></ul><ul><li>Internal training scheme (2 years as a junior) </li></ul><ul><li>2 weeks of education per year </li></ul><ul><li>“ Lessons learned” after every project </li></ul><ul><li>Guidance by seniors (interview per year, development goals) </li></ul><ul><li>SOQUA participation: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Methods (Data analysis) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Project management </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Thematic courses </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>International projects </li></ul></ul>

8.
What do we expect <ul><li>some international experience </li></ul><ul><li>strong in quantitative and qualitative methods </li></ul><ul><li>broad thematic interests </li></ul><ul><li>some political experience </li></ul><ul><li>social competences </li></ul><ul><li>Field of study is not important </li></ul>

9.
Problems <ul><li>Structures </li></ul><ul><li>Strong Hirarchy – weak democracy </li></ul><ul><li>bad Human Ressource Management </li></ul><ul><ul><li>work conditions, contracts, leadership </li></ul></ul><ul><li>low cooperation in strategic planning, low experiencce in teamwork </li></ul>

10.
Problems <ul><li>Wrong orientations </li></ul><ul><li>Individualistic career orientation </li></ul><ul><li>Specialisation (migration and gender research) </li></ul><ul><li>division between quantitative and qualitative research </li></ul><ul><li>Missing competencies </li></ul><ul><li>week methodological training </li></ul><ul><li>no project management competencies </li></ul><ul><li>low political experience </li></ul>

11.
What we recommend social sciences <ul><li>send students abroad </li></ul><ul><li>send teachers abroad and bring others in </li></ul><ul><li>train them methods of different social science fields and an introduction to the theoretical backgrounds </li></ul><ul><li>apply &quot;learning by doing&quot; strategies </li></ul><ul><li>invest in management structures and culture (on institute level) </li></ul><ul><li>strenghten democracy and participation on university </li></ul><ul><li>lobbying - funds must pay for overheads </li></ul>