Early Career Network
The Early Career Network of the ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance serves as an international platform for early career researchers specialising in regulatory governance.
The aims of the Early Career Network are to:
(1) Engage in career-related conversations which include, but are not limited to:
• Publishing and developing an academic profile in the field of regulatory governance
• Networking, collaborating and co-authoring with senior academics
• Navigating the increasingly competitive academic job market
• Engaging in conversations about complementary and alternative job markets
• Academic staff well-being and managing pressures associated with academic work
• Promoting positive social and collective action including issues related to equality and diversity
(2) Contribute to the generation of new ideas through activities such as:
• Scanning the ‘research horizon’ and promoting emerging research themes
• Revisiting orthodoxies in the field in a constructive manner
• Fostering dialogue with cognate fields
• Collaborating with actors outside academia, from the public to the private and the civil-societal sector
We welcome participation by early career researchers from all over the world, with a particular encouragement for gender and racial diversity and equality.
Activities
30 May 2024: Webinar on Securing Postdoc Opportunities in Regulatory Governance
In the second half of 2024, the early-career network will organise a webinar about the postdoc landscape in regulatory governance in continental Europe, the United Kingdom, North America, Latin
America and Oceania. In this event, experienced postdocs and senior academics will share
their experiences searching for and applying for relevant opportunities. They will also shed
light on academic expectations in different regions and disciplinary considerations during
their postdocs. Participants will also discuss the advantages of and challenges to doing an
interdisciplinary postdoc in regulatory governance, a project-based postdoc and an
independent postdoc.
30 May 2024: Meeting the Editor: Webinar on Publishing in Regulatory Governance
In late 2024, the early-career network will organise a webinar on publishing in prominent regulatory
governance journals. We will invite the editors to share information about the journal and the
publication process and give advice for early-career researchers to get their work published. The date is TBD.
30 May 2024: Early-Career Mentoring Programme
The early-career network initiated a mentoring programme for early-career researchers in regulatory studies (broadly defined) to help their career development. You are welcome to register if you are a late-stage doctoral researcher or have completed your PhD in the last five years. Every early-career researcher will be matched with a mentor. In this programme, you and your Mentor will schedule online meetings at least twice a year.
Please proceed with the registration form below, and we will get back to you once a suitable mentor has been found.
Prospective mentors click here.
Prospective early-career researchers click here.
Organising committee
The organising committee is made of early-career researchers from different backgrounds and at different stages of career development. We are a friendly bunch. Please reach out to us if you would like to participate in our activities!
Chair
Takuya Onoda, SciencePo, France
Takuya Onoda is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the London School of Economics, has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in law and political science from the University of Tokyo, and was a visiting doctoral student at Sciences Po’s Centre for the Sociology of Organisations. Before joining Sciences Po, he was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute.
Takuya’s research is in the fields of comparative public policy and political economy in rich democracies, with particular interests in the state, regulatory politics and health and social policies. His current work focuses on the politics of policy-making by unelected bodies such as independent regulatory agencies and expert committees. In his book project, he studies the relations between independent regulatory agencies and democratic politics, with a focus on drug funding policies in Europe and Japan.
Contact: takuya.onoda@sciencespo.fr
Team
Wenting Cheng, University of Queensland, Australia
Wenting is a legal and regulatory scholar working in intellectual property law, sustainability governance and their intersection. She has applied interdisciplinary skills, comparative perspectives and regulatory theories to her research in diverse areas, including intellectual property law, innovation policy, energy regulation (particularly hydrogen and off-shore wind power), just climate transition and sustainable finance at local, national and international levels.
She obtained her PhD in Regulation and Governance in 2018 from the School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University. From 2020 to 2023, Wenting worked as a Grand Challenge Fellow at ANU Grand Challenge Zero Carbon Energy for the Asia Pacific. In this project, she had the opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary team to explore how to address technical, economic and regulatory challenges for energy transition in Australia, in the Asia-Pacific region and globally.
Contact: wenting.cheng@uq.edu.au
Jose Maria Velenzuela, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Jose Maria Valenzuela is a research fellow at the University of Oxford Institute for Science, Innovation and Society and Oxford Net Zero Fellow. As a scholar of international and comparative studies, Jose studies policy-making institutions and practices, focusing on how technical knowledge is used in government. He has published work on electricity market design, energy planning and, more recently, carbon removal and developmental concerns. Previously, he worked for Mexico’s Department of Energy as climate change and renewable energy planning lead.
He holds a DPhil in Public Policy from the University of Oxford Blavatnik School of Government and trained as an international politics scholar at El Colegio de México, the University of Chicago and Tsinghua University. He is a scientific member of the El Colegio de México Energy Programme and a non-resident Fellow at the Energy for Growth Hub.
Contact: jose.valenzuela@insis.ox.ac.uk
Anar Shaikenova, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Anar Shaikenova has a PhD in Public Policy from the Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. Her thesis is entitled ‘Regulatory Impact Assessment in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Georgia: Cases of Policy Learning and Capacity’. Her other research interests include regulatory policy and governance, small business development, civil society and gender equality issues.
Anar has an MA in Public Administration and a BA in International Relations from the University of Minnesota, United States. Before joining the Ph.D. program, she worked with USAID, ADB and EXBS on small business development, trade facilitation and strategic trade controls in Kazakhstan and in the Central Asian region.
Contact: anar.shaikenova@nu.edu.kz
Previous committee members
Jose A. Bolanos, King’s College, United Kingdom
Flavia Donadelli, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Andrej Guter-Sandu, University of Bath, United Kingdom
Janina Grabs, University of Basel, Switzerland
Yair Osheroff, Hebrew University, Israel
Slobodan Tomic, University of York, United Kingdom
