Data Specialist visits University as part of Erasmus exchange

This October Dr. Felix Bethke from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany visited the School of Law and Politics as part of an Erasmus staff exchange.

Dr. Bethke's main research and teaching areas are foreign policy analysis, peace and conflict studies, African politics and political methodology. His work on nonviolent resistance and democratisation has recently been published in the Journal of Peace Research. As part of Dr. Bethke's visit, he taught a range of classes on quantitative methods and data analysis and also discussed potential collaborative research projects in the field of peace research and the sociology of international relations with colleagues from the School.

Dr. Bethke said of his visit, “I was really impressed by the intellectual spirit of Cardiff University. It was a great pleasure to be here and exchange ideas with students and scholars. I also had a really great time exploring the city of Cardiff and experiencing Welsh culture. Thanks to Cardiff University for their hospitality and to the EU Erasmus program for funding.”

The University of Duisburg-Essen is one of the six Erasmus+ partner universities in the field of political science and international relations. Other partnerships include Radboud University in the Netherlands, the University of Mainz and Freiburg in Germany, the Universidad Pontificias Icade-Comoillas Madrid, Spain and the Charles University Prague, Czech Republic. Erasmus+ partnerships allow for students and staff from our partner institutions to come and work with us and for our students and staff to have mobility opportunities in our partner institutions.

Victoria Basham, Erasmus coordinator of the School commented, “Erasmus provides exciting exchanges that expose students and staff alike to new learning environments. It creates opportunities for greater research and teaching collaboration for staff and enhances the experiences of students and their job opportunities post degree.”