The winners of our ECR paper competition for 2020-21

We are pleased to announce the results of our 2020-21 IJSRM competition for papers written by early career researchers (ECRs) who, at the time of submission, were either doctoral students or in their first three years of post-doctoral employment. Our aim has been to encourage and recognise research and contributions from new scholars in current and emerging methodological debates and practice.

All entries were subject to the Journal’s usual refereeing processes and had to reach our normal publishing standard. The winners were selected by a sub-panel of members of the IJSRM Editorial Board and the Journal Editors. The panel were impressed with the very strong field of entries, and we are pleased to announce not only a winner of the ‘Best ECR Article’ but also three ‘highly commended’ runners up.

Our IJSRM Early Career Researcher Prize is awarded to Stefanie Döringer (Austrian Academy of Sciences and University of Vienna) for her article on ‘The problem-centred expert interview: Combining qualitative interviewing approaches for investigating implicit expert knowledge’. The panel of judges remarked on a ‘clearly written and illuminating account’, representing ‘a lightbulb moment that brings two previously disconnected traditions together’, and that will be ‘highly valuable as a reference for many researchers for years to come’. Stephanie’s article has already been viewed over 16,500 times.

Stephanie said, ‘It is a great honor for me that my paper is awarded with the IJSRM Early Career Researchers’ prize. The appreciative comments from the competition judges encourage me to follow my research interest further and to deepen my work with qualitative methods in social research’.

Our highly commended runners (in alphabetical order) are: Riccardo Ladini (University of Milan): ‘Assessing general attentiveness to online panel surveys: The use of instructional manipulation checks’ Órla Meadhbh Murray (Imperial College London): ‘Text, Process, Discourse: Doing Feminist Text Analysis in Institutional Ethnography’ Kate Summers (London School of Economic and Political Science): ‘For the greater good? Ethical reflections on interviewing the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ in qualitative research’

Many congratulations to Stephanie, and also to Kate, Órla and Riccardo.