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The Institutions Think Tank provides graduate students from Research Masters programmes related to the Strategic Research Theme “Institutions for Open Societies” with an opportunity for hands-on interdisciplinary research collaboration in connection with Utrecht University's strategic research theme "Institutions for Open Societies." The course aims to equip students with key conceptual and methodological tools for pursuing research related to how institutions serve function (or fail to function) to addressing key societal issues. The course also provides invaluable experience in working collaboratively.
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The course combines seminars with student-led research in addressing key issues relating to "Institutions for Open Societies." One of Utrecht University's four strategic research themes of Utrecht, "Institutions," brings together research into the ways in which formal and informal frameworks for human interaction – laws, customs, networks, organisations, etc. – enable or constrain the realisation of an open, democratic and equitable society, as well as determine a society's ability to absorb shocks and its sustainability. See: http://www.uu.nl/en/research/institutions-for-open-societies.
The instructors for 2017-18 are: Joel Anderson (RMA Philosophy); Lucky Belder, RMA Legal Research); Erwin Bulte (RMA Multidisciplinary Economics); Tine de Moor, RMA History); and Barbara Vis (RMA Research in Public Administration and Organizational Science)
The course begins with three lecture-seminars devoted to canonical texts and key concepts in this field of research, and with discussions among the five co-instructors (and with the seminar participants) of a series of illustrative proposals for how to do interdisciplinary research into how a “disruptive” development (such as the rise of ride-sharing services or the aging of the population) impacts the “institutional infrastructure”. The texts, concepts, theories, and methods central to these themes form the shared background for the research developed by students in the remainder of the course.
In the second part of the course, students form multidisciplinary research teams to jointly carry out their own research the role of institutions in (failing to) address a specific social challenge. Under the guidance of one of the instructors, each research team produces grant proposal for an interdisciplinary research into a instance of "institutional disruption." The course concludes with a symposium in which the research teams present their results to a jury of experts.
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