prima pagina1 By Marcus Grätsch (ERASMUS Student University of Warwick) June 2001 Between the 4th and the 6th of may 2001 the third general meeting was held in Berlin. So far 30 Students are members of the national association. This members study actually at 15 different universities all over the country. The Executive committee also produces an information newsletter distributed by mail for all people who gave a sign that they are interested in the association. This newsletter is issued unregularly, only important events became distributed. On the general meeting there were discussions held on administrative (i.e. statute changes and elections) and on project matters. This report is about the several projects of the national association of political science students in Germany. Workshop "Democracy in Post-cold war Europe" The workshop, which was organized by members of IPOSS was held in February 2001 in Marburg, Germany. About 50 people participated at the discussions and lectures, among them students from eastern and western Europe. These stu- dents were basically invited via IAPSS. Some essays are already on the website of IPOSS: http://www.iposs.de/ marburg2001/index.html . Essay competition A new project that is just in progress to become launched is an essay competition. Students of universities and schools could write essays about “Global Governance” and try to win several prizes. The idea of how the project would look like in the end is not very clear elaborated. Very many decisions have to be made by the organizing team over the next months. So far the idea is to set up a jury, maybe with IPOSS members and some international relation scholars. Also book publishers, foundations and so on have to be asked for possible prizes. The organization team has to develop a poster, which should be distributed for promotion in nearly all universities in Germany. The idea is to collect as many essays as possible until the end of April or the beginning of May 2002. Linklist Our Website has the possibility to insert new Internet links, which could be of importance for political scientist stu- dents. So far not much input has been done. We hope that will change in future. Excursion The members of the association want to visit a city in which we could visit Organizations related to the field of political science. In Berlin the decision was made to organize a journey to Brussel in Belgium. In the capital of the European Union we want to visit Organization who are important for the policy decisions in the social security policy field. The members who plan the trip want to try to get some meetings arranged with officials of the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe (UNICE). Another idea is to meet people who work for the project www.eu- studentvote.org . Care&contact Is a job fair of a different kind. Job fairs for students can be visited very often. On normal fairs students have the possi- bility to speak to future employers of several business fields. Large corporations present themselves on those fairs and try to seek new employees. Those fairs are more organized for students of subjects like economics, business studies, engineering and the like. Our fair, which will be held in Berlin in November 2001 is one on which Organization are presented who work in fields of social and ecological responsible fields. The idea is to bring students who can not make their choice on normal July-August Politikon This report elaborates the actual projects of the German national association for political science students. Men- tioned are the workshop “democracy in post-cold war europe”, the essay competition, the linklist, the excursion, the care&contact fair, the University department profiles, the volunteership databank, the Survey of new students, the book ‘Introduction to Political science: by and for students’, the Essay peer reviewing, the homepage, the Public relations work and finally the finances. job fairs because of their ethical attitudes, skills or whatever. University department profiles If a pupil decides to study political science he or she has to make a difficult decision. Hoe does a specific department look like? How many students are their? Which is the main field worked on in a specific department within political science? Do they have a bias towards a theoretical background or not (eg. Empirical-analytical, normative-ontology, critical-dialectical)? How many lecturers are their? That are just some questions which should become answered through a questionnaire which was designed by a member of IPOSS and will be filled out in the next month by department officials and/or students of that department. Volunteership databank A volunterership is in Germany in most study programs obligatory. We send to many organizations that are of interest for political scientist a questionnaire. The result of that survey can be reached over our Website. Students who want to do a volunteership can look there for specific details about Organizations who replied on our questionnaire. The data- bank should grow in the future, if we send again the questionnaire around the world, because next time the idea is to send the form also to organizations abroad. Survey of new students Why do students decide for political science? From where do they get their information for those decisions? Which job do they think they could do with a political science degree? These are some of the questions we asked in our first survey in October 2000. These and new questions will be also asked in October 2001, then the survey group will be widened to 2nd year and 3rd year students. Introduction to Political science Some members want to write a book, which introduces to political science. This book will be a compilation of essays. Regarding to the specific topics should these essays provide overviews of the several political science fields and of re- search and study tips from students for students. The idea is to publish that book at the end of the year 2002. Essay peer review Members who wrote essays for their study can send their work through our email distribution list and asking for people who want to read over it. In doing so we could help each other to make those study works better. Finished essays can be reached over our Website if send to our webmaster. Homepage The Homepage is the main communication with the world “outside” IPOSS. Our webmaster designed just the layout new. You can visit it at www.iposs.de . There we have a formula for persons who want to get in contact with us. Also the possibility to set up a discussion fo- rum. People can read about our actual projects, visit the volunteership database and the university department profiles. Public relations work Some interviews had been made with journalists and members of the association. These interviews became printed. We send not regularly press information throughout the country. We want to get more active in public relations. Our pro- jects could be of interests for several governmental bodies, like for example the ministries for employment who are in Germany in charge for Job advises of pupils who had to left school. Also the German Association of political scientist (DVPW) could have an interest in our works. At the end of the summer vacation 2001 IPOSS will send Information packages with poster, flyers and other promotion material to all political science departments in Germany. Finances Membership fees finance our association. Each member has to pay 10,- Euro a year. We got also some funding of the Marburg local political science student association who gave us some money which had been taken of the surplus of a party. (not the CDU more a celebration event ;-). luglio-agosto Politikon