Prospectus

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Fieldwork / Research Internship (February intake)

Course
2016-2017

Admission requirements

Final permission for conducting field research or internship is obtained once the following conditions have been met:

  • Formal admission and enrollment to the MA programme CA-DS

  • Declaration of liability

  • Submission of budget

  • Approval of final research proposal

  • Proof of sufficient language proficiency (declaration by the supervisor)

Description

Ethnographic Fieldwork:
If approved by the institute, the individual field research may be conducted anywhere in the world provided that the location is safe and not afflicted by armed conflict.
This fieldwork is arranged by students themselves. It is expected that the student will independently establish the necessary contacts with local authorities, acquire research permission and affiliation as well as accommodation in the country of research. Supervision during this preparatory period if provided by the thesis advisor in Leiden. It is expected that the student will be locally affiliated with an institute or a person willing to take (partial) responsibility for their fieldwork, because the Leiden supervisor will not be able to visit the student in the field. Nevertheless, the student remains under the supervision of his/her Leiden based supervisor the entire time. Supervision of the processing and reporting on field data is the responsibility of the staff in Leiden.

Research Internship for Policy in Practice:
The Sociology of Policy in Practice specialisation offers students the opportunity to work on an own personal three-month research project at an NGO, government agency, small or large-scale company, museum or knowledge institute, either in the Netherlands or abroad. A list of internships available to students from the February-intake will be available from January 2017.

Financial matters

MA field research can be a costly endeavour for the student, as it will usually involve travel and the costs of additional accommodation. These expenses are not covered by the tuition fee for the MA programme.

To ease the financial strain various funds can be applied for:

  • The Leiden University scholarship web-page. Most often the students of CA-DS acquire grants from the LUF and the LUSTRA but can also be sucessful in acquiring financial aid from smaller, private funds and trusts. Since much of the information about funds is available in Dutch language, foreign students might need assistance from their Dutch fellow-students when looking for relevant information, or address the resources from their country of origin.

  • Sub-letting your room in Leiden can also be a good source of income.

  • Also check the Dutch study grant provider DUO for additional information.

Assessment method

Throughout your research, you will write three Fieldwork/Internship reports.

  • Report 1: Operationalization in the field, to be submitted to your supervisor after 3 weeks in the field)

  • Report 2: Reflection on the fieldwork experience, to be submitted to your supervisor after 6 weeks in the field

  • Report 3 (final): Preliminary Analysis/Interpretation of the data.

The fieldwork is rated “pass” based on performance in the research setting.

Time-table

April, May, June 2017.
NB: A later starting date is also an option, since there are no lectures to be followed before September, but this must be approved by the supervisor.

Contact

Fieldwork coördinator Dr. Erik de Maaker (room 3A34, tel. 071-527 6612, e-mail maaker@fsw.leidenuniv.nl )