WORKSHOP: Support for Institutes and Research Groups on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research: 2015-2017

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The Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research is a two-week meeting held each summer at Syracuse University. The Institute promotes the teaching and application of qualitative research methods in political science and other social science disciplines. Given the inferential leverage that using multiple analytic techniques can deliver, the Institute's instructors and participants, and thus its pedagogy, are also strongly concerned with how qualitative methods undergird and complement alternative analytic approaches. The current proposal requests NSF's support for the 14th, 15th and 16th iterations of the Institute (2015-2017) and its associated Research Group. The Research Group is a two-day authors' workshop that meets at least once during each Institute's two-week duration. The Institute is now firmly established as the premier venue for intensive instruction on, training to conduct, and preparation to teach qualitative and multi-method research. By June 2014, over 1,600 graduate students and junior faculty will have received instruction on advanced qualitative methods at the Institute.The Institute has also had a direct and beneficial influence on the development of the qualitative and multi-methods canon, especially in political science. Early versions of books and articles developing, disseminating and/or using qualitative methods have been presented and discussed at the Institute. "Road-testing" forthcoming work at the Institute gives authors an unparalleled opportunity to receive valuable feedback and criticism from an audience with diverse epistemic commitments and substantive interests. Interchange at the Institute has also resulted in collaborative writing projects among faculty and participants, and has stimulated new methodological research by both groups. One of the primary missions of the Research Group is to encourage and empower young scholars to publish in the field of methodology, thus enhancing and expanding the core canon of published research on qualitative and multi-method research. The Institute provides high-level, carefully designed instruction for a large and diverse group of attendees drawn from a wide national and, increasingly, international constituency. The Institute's contribution to improving methodological training in the social sciences has resulted in more rigorous and methodologically self-conscious research. Its deliberate outreach to scholars from developing countries has the potential to induce an especially powerful multiplier effect when those participants go on to teach what they have learned at their home institution, thereby extending the Institute's reach to multiple locations around the globe.