Interview with Mădălin BLIDARU, PhD student in International Relations

Thank you for these questions. My name is Mădălin Blidaru. I am a PhD student in International Relations at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania. Currently, I am in the late stage of my PhD programme, preparing to submit my thesis. My area of research is the foreign policy of the European Union. I am particularly interested in the relations the EU has established with regional cooperation and integration organizations across the Globe, what are the asymmetries among them, how these relations developed and how we can compare and assess them. 

I discovered the CIVICA ESR Courses Catalogue after an announcement from the doctoral school of the university. The decision to attend few of them was based on some needs that I had in the training as an early stage researcher, on one hand, and on some questions for which I needed some additional preparation in my field of study and research. Thus, I found it useful to participate in two courses: Ethics and Research Integrity, International Trade, provided by Sciences Po. The first one allowed the participants to improve their research data policy and to discuss sensitive issues related to collection, storage, and use of data. The second one helped me to get accustomed in a structured way with some theories of international trade. I considered that it is necessary to have a more robust understanding of this area from an economic standpoint, apart from my PhD commitments and my background being in Political Science and International Relations. 

My feedback is a positive one. I had the chance to ask the questions of concern, to receive useful answers and recommendations. These classes are interactive, excellent content delivered by lecturers. Interested students and early-stage researchers are taking part in these classes, with joint participation of students across the CIVICA network. Thanks to the pandemic, you can attend them from your home country or wherever you are doing your research. I hope this project will be a sustainable one within CIVICA, even after the pandemic, because the content has its added value for interested students, PhD researchers and postdocs. 

Firstly, I recommend them to check the course catalogue, to see how the CIVICA offer for them can help them. And from this perspective, there are available courses, seminars, workshops that are helpful to answer methodological or theoretical questions, and even to help them plan their PhD life. I’ve seen that there are some opportunities from various CIVICA members to help them deal with questions such as the PhD time overload, to improve the early research stage of their career, to deal with some research integrity questions, as I mentioned before, and many others.  Additionally, it is important to highlight that CIVICA provides access to a European campus. There are eight leading universities in the social sciences providing these physical or digital opportunities for students and researchers. And there is diversity among the topics proposed by CIVICA courses for the PhDs and postdocs. Of course, each individual early stage researcher will know better how these CIVICA courses can support them and their research programmes.