EITM at Duke University

Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models
Summer Institute
Duke University, June 16 - July 11, 2008

Duke will host the seventh annual Summer Institute on EITM: Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models this summer, June 16th through July 11th, 2008. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), this program seeks to leverage the complementarity between formal models and empirical methods. EITM is training a new generation of scholars to integrate theoretical models more closely, effectively, and productively with empirical evaluation of those models. The Summer Institutes are highly interactive training programs for advanced graduate students and junior faculty. They are led by teams of scholars from across the discipline who are working at the forefront of such empirical-theoretical integration.

This year's program includes John Aldrich, Arthur Lupia, Wendy Wood, Scott de Marchi, and James Fowler in leading roles.

Summer institutes generally accept 25 participants - advanced graduate students and junior faculty - through a competitive selection process. Tuition, dormitory lodging, meals, and domestic travel are covered for participants through a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Graduate students will benefit most from the program if they are committed to using both theoretical models and empirical data in their dissertations. They should have some training in both formal methodology and quantitative analysis, and advanced training in at least one of these areas. We also welcome applications from junior faculty looking to improve their defended dissertation in a direction that incorporates EITM, or who are embarking on an EITM-style post-dissertation project.

A new feature begun last year is that the efforts of our regular Lecturing Faculty will be augmented by a team of Mentoring Faculty-in-Residence (MFR). We expect that MFRs will be drawn from the ranks of tenure-track or recently tenured political science faculty who use EITM methods in their research. Each MFR will have a mentoring group, consisting of a small number of EITM participants. MFRs will work closely with his/her mentees, helping them integrate ideas and methods from the Institute into their own projects. MFRs will also work closely with lecturing faculty to develop a set of teaching materials for a semester-length course reflecting EITM principles, and will give presentations of their own current research.

The 2008 EITM VII is hosted by the Department of Political Science and the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University under the leadership of John Aldrich and Alexandra Cooper.

The NSF also funds another, complementary, EITM summer program at Washington University in St. Louis. Participation in either program in no way debars students or faculty from future participation in the other program.

Principal Investigators
John Aldrich

Kathleen Bawn

Henry Brady

Elisabeth Gerber

Lead Lecturers
John Aldrich

MFR's