We are very happy to inform you that Alexander Mitterle, research associate at the Martin-Luther-Univ. Halle-Wittenberg, has been awarded the ECPR SG Knowledge Politics and Policies Excellent Paper Award for 2020!

The jury – Emanuela Reale, Luis Sanz-Menendez and Bjørn Stensaker – have selected his paper titled “Time, the University, and Stratification: The Historical Making of Institutional Time as a Strategic Resource” as the best one in this year’s rather strong competition. They have justified their decision as follows:

This is a very interesting and original investigation of time as strategic resource for enabling organizational stratification among and between higher education institutions. From a historical perspective, it offers new insights into routines and administrative regulations, the relationship between timing of innovations and universities strategic positioning in a global and increasing stratified environment. The paper is clear and well-written, with a consistently developed argument, and the discussion has both depth and scope. The study provides a significant contribution to the field. 

Alexander Mitterle is research associate at the Center for School and   Educational Research and the Institute for Sociology at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. His research explores the way in which (institutional) stratification unfolds in higher education in light of declining state regulation. This includes the historical formation of distinct organizational arrangements and their vertical effects, the interaction of sizing devices, the borderlands of admissions, intensifications of time and the idiosyncrasies of disciplines. He is currently working on a research project on the academization of work funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). His most recent paper (together with Manfred Stock) “higher education expansion in Germany: between civil rights, state-organized entitlement system and academization” will be published in the next weeks in the European Journal of Higher Education (https://www.zsb.uni-halle.de/personen/mitterle/?lang=en).

The Steering Committee of our Standing Group and the Jury would like to congratulate Alexander on this significant achievement!

We also take this opportunity to thank the Jury of the Excellent Paper Award – Bjørn Stensaker, Professor at the University of Oslo, and to Luis Sanz-Menendez, Director of the CSIC Institute pf Public Goods and Policies (Madrid), and to Emanuela Reale, Director of IRCRES – (the Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth at National Research Council CNR) for their work as the Jury member for several previous rounds of the Excellent Paper Award. Their support for the award and the assessments they have provided have been invaluable for our Standing Group and for the importance of the Excellent Paper Award. We also wish Bjørn Stensaker all the best in his next adventure as the part of the leadership team of the University of Oslo.