Hertie School PhD

🚀 Apply Now! Explore our PhD stipend opportunities across various research areas:   - PhD Stipend in the research area war and security, climate change, or migration and forced displacement at the Centre for Fundamental Rights - Hertie School Deadline: 31 January 2026 More information: https://lnkd.in/dfVCzudd - PhD Stipend at the Centre for International Security is particularly interested in candidates conducting quantitative research on digital authoritarianism, state repression, contentious politics online, and social movements in the digital age. However, proposals from other research areas will also be considered.  Deadline: 31 January 2026 More information: https://lnkd.in/e_6_RVwx - PhD Stipend in Media & Behavioral Economics (Berlin School of Economics PhD Program & Hertie School) Two PhD positions supervised by Prof. Arianna Ornaghi, Prof. Egon Tripodi and possibly other Berlin School of Economics faculty members. Funding available for up to four years. Deadline: 15 January 2026. More information: https://lnkd.in/e97KPaPW

🎉🎓 #PhDone Congratulations to Anina Harter, our newest PhD graduate, for successfully defending her dissertation “Essays in Applied Microeconomics: How shocks and institutions shape policy preferences and public spending”, supervised by Prof. Arianna Ornaghi, PhD with committee members Prof. Dr. Beate Jochimsen , Prof. Mark Hallerberg, PhD and Dr. Oguzhan Türkoglu.   Key highlights of her research include: - Harter, Anina. (2025). Legislative institutions and distributive politics: Evidence from Germany’s federal budget committee (No. 0075). Berlin School of Economics. https://lnkd.in/esM8MXJV - Borisova, Ekaterina, Gründler, Klaus, Hackenberger, Armin, Harter, Anina, Potrafke, Niklas, & Schoors, Koen. (2023, November). Crisis experience and the deep roots of COVID-19 vaccination preferences. European Economic Review. https://lnkd.in/e57xEwXh - Harter, Anina, & Ornaghi, Arianna. (2025). Industrial disasters and preferences for abortion policy: Evidence from the 1976 Seveso accident. Anina’s paper on Germany’s federal budget committee attracted significant media attention, including features on ZDF News and in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Her work highlights how legislative institutions and committee membership shape policy outcomes, sparking public discussion and interest beyond academia.    We wish Anina all the best with her next professional and personal steps!

🎉 Meet Marielle Düh – PhD Researcher at the Centre for Digital Governance! We're delighted to introduce Marielle Düh, a PhD candidate at the Centre for Digital Governance at the Hertie School and a member of the Politics of Digitalization research group at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer Sozialforschung (WZB). Marielle's research focuses on digital sovereignty, taking a comparative approach to examine how China and the European Union pursue distinct strategies in this field — with a particular focus on the role of artificial intelligence technologies. She contributes to the ClaimSov project on digital sovereignty, conducted in collaboration with CNRS (Paris) and Université de Montréal. Marielle holds a BA in China Studies from the Universität Wien | University of Vienna and an MA in Big Data in Culture and Society from King's College London. She has also worked at re:publica and the Goethe-Institut e.V. in Beijing. 🌟 Supervised by Prof. Danie Stockmann, Marielle's work brings a truly global and interdisciplinary perspective to the governance of digital transformation. Join us in giving Marielle a warm welcome! #DigitalGovernance #PhDResearch #DigitalSovereignty #HertieSchool #DigitalTransformation #Research

🎓 Fully-funded PhD Stipend Positions in Media & Behavioral Economics   The Hertie School and the Berlin School of Economics are offering two fully-funded PhD positions to study how media markets, information, and psychological factors shape beliefs, behavior, and polarization.   You will join the Berlin School of Economics PhD Program and work under the supervision of Prof. Arianna Ornaghi and Prof. Egon Tripodi and possibly other faculty members of the Berlin School of Economics. Funding is available for up to four years.   We invite applicants interested in: • Media economics & market structures • News consumption and belief formation • Misinformation, ideology & echo chambers • Behavioral decision-making   📄 Please indicate your research interests in your motivation letter. ⏰ Application deadline: 15 January 2026 🔗 Learn more & apply: https://lnkd.in/e97KPaPW #HertieSchool #PhDStipend #PhD #Stipend #Economics #Media

Hertie School PhD researcher Sofía García-Durrer Garciá Durrer received the Best Presentation award, together with Laura Botzet, at the third international edition of the #FredaUserConference in Wiesbaden.   Read more about the conference here in German: https://lnkd.in/e2XrvEGD and here in English: https://lnkd.in/esgT8axW   Congratulations, Sofia! #HertieSchoolPhD #HertieSchool #PhD #Academia #FREDA #Research

🎓#PhDone Congratulations to Francesca Minetto, our most recent PhD graduate, for successfully defending her dissertation titled “Shaping Brussels from the Outside In: The Role of International Institutions in EU Policymaking”, supervised by Prof. Dr. Christine Reh, with committee members Prof. Dr. Frank Schimmelfennig (ETH Zurich), Prof. Sandra Lavenez and Dr. Martin Moland. - Minetto, Francesca, Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz and Roman Senninger (2025). Are International Institutions Relevant Evidence Providers for the EU? - Minetto, Francesca (2025). Introducing the EUxII Database: Mapping the Relevance of International Institutions in EU Policymaking - Minetto, Francesca. (2025). Does the EU ever import its policies? The overlooked role of international institutions. Journal of European Public Policy, 1–35. https://lnkd.in/eWCTUtuq We wish Francesca all the best in his next professional and personal steps!

#PhDPublications 🎉 A new article by Kinga Koranyi analyses the limits of the EU’s rule of law financial sanctions and Hungary’s selective compliance strategy. The research finds that Hungary’s partial compliance with EU sanctions in 2022–2023 reflected a calculated balance between political and economic costs. Legal ambiguities and inconsistent EU communication enabled Hungary to minimise economic losses while maintaining politically sensitive reforms. The study contributes to understanding how domestic political factors influence compliance with EU rule of law mechanisms. 🔗 Read the article here: Koranyi, Kinga. (2025). The limits of EU rule of law financial sanctions: how economic and political costs shaped Hungary’s selective compliance strategy. Journal of European Public Policy, 1–28. https://lnkd.in/ekQ-P_u9

#PhDPublications 🎉 We are pleased to share a recent publication by Dr. Stefania Molina, Prof. Dr. Michaela Kreyenfeld and Enrique Alonso-Perez, which examines how divorce affects mental health, with a particular focus on gender and income differences. The study finds that women face a higher risk of mental health issues than men, and that divorce, especially at older ages, further increases this risk. Low income amplifies these effects, underscoring the need for policies that support vulnerable groups during later-life marital transitions. 🔗 Read the article here: Molina, S., Alonso-Perez, E. & Kreyenfeld, M. Divorce and Mental Health: Is Late Divorce Particularly Harmful for Women with Low Earnings?. Soc Indic Res (2025). https://lnkd.in/e9gAavc7

#PhDPublications 🎉 A recent article by our PhD researcher Elias Koch analyses how opposition parties respond to changes in electoral support. Using a dataset of over 660,000 interjections during 250,000 government speeches in 16 German state parliaments (1998–2019), the study finds that opposition parties increase confrontational rhetoric toward the government when their poll ratings decline, particularly when support drops below previous election results. The findings offer insights into how electoral dynamics shape political conflict in representative democracies. 🔗 Read the full article here: Koch, Elias. (2025). Opposition parties seek more conflict with the government when losing electoral support. West European Politics, 1–19. https://lnkd.in/eaRfMcux