Roman Senninger receives DKK 4.5 million from the Carlsberg Foundation

How and why do politicians learn from policies from abroad when looking for solutions to problems such as inflation, climate change and pandemics? Associate professor of political science Roman Senninger is to examine this question in his new project supported by a DKK 4.5 million grant from the Carlsberg Foundation.

Roman Senninger Photo: Erling Gammelmark Simonsen for the Carlsberg Foundation
Associate professor of political science Roman Senninger Photo: Erling Gammelmark Simonsen for the Carlsberg Foundation

”I’m incredibly happy for the Carlsberg Semper Ardens Accelerate grant, which is a great recognition and at the same time a strong motivation for my future work,” says associate professor of political science Roman Senninger from Aarhus BSS at Aarhus University about receiving the grant.

“My good colleagues from the department and the talented people from the research support office at AU were of great help throughout the application process – for this I’m very thankful,” he continues.

The grant allows him to hire two postdocs and one research assistant for his project POLABROAD – How and why politicians learn from policies from abroad.

“I’m looking forward to investigating why and how politicians learn from other politicians abroad. And I’m especially looking forward to forming my own research group. It will be an exciting new chapter of my career,” he says.

Besides investigating how and why politicians look for solutions abroad when they are faced with major crises, the project also examines whether politicians make well-considered decisions in these situations. Implementing ineffective policies from abroad carries heavy social and economic costs, while overlooking possible successful policies from abroad can even cost lives.

The project includes field experiments of politicians’ actual behaviour as well as computational text analysis of parliamentary speeches and press releases.