Publications - MPIfG

Cologne city government. Due to
the current crisis of local government
finance these were discontinued
in 2003. The four students that
worked with Streeck and Hassel on
institutional change in German
industrial relations were funded by
the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, a grantmaking
foundation of the German
trade union confederation (DGB).
The Stiftung awards doctoral dissertation
grants to particularly talented
students. The four dissertation
projects at the MPIfG were
part of an experiment under which
the MPIfG picked four applicants
to the Stiftung for doctoral fellowships,
to work concurrently under
the supervision of one the MPIfG’s
directors and a senior researcher on closely connected subjects while drawing on
a shared data pool (“Dissertationsverbund”). Similar arrangements, with the same
foundation or with others, will be sought in the future.
Relations to Universities
Difficulties may arise from the fact that the MPIfG is not a degree-conferring
institution. While Streeck is now Außerplanmäßiger Professor at the University of
Cologne, and Scharpf was Honorarprofessor at the University of Konstanz, doctoral
students at the MPIfG are typically not recruited on the basis of their contributions
to lectures and seminars of their future supervisors. Instead, most apply to
the MPIfG on their own or respond to public advertisements. Increasingly, the
MPIfG is hiring graduates with a university Diplom for project assistantships, usually
for two or three years; upon expiration of their contract, they are then offered
a doctoral dissertation grant. While entry via a project assistant position results in
postponement of an individual’s dissertation work, it is likely to shorten the time
needed for its completion.
Moreover, as the MPIfG cannot award degrees, its doctoral students have to
find a faculty member at a university who is willing to sponsor their dissertation.
External supervision, however, by university faculty members who are not affiliated
with the MPIfG is difficult as MPIfG doctoral students are and should be closely
integrated into the Institute. This makes it necessary to coordinate the sub-
Graduate Training and Teaching
Doctoral candidates at the
MPIfG 2001. Back: Oliver
Treib, Steffen Ganghof,
Antje Kurdelbusch, Till
Müller-Schoell, Jörg Teuber,
Miriam Hartlapp, Britta
Rehder, Armin Schäfer.
Front: Eric Seils, Simone
Leiber, Martin Heipertz,
Martin Schludi
61