Resources and Research Facilities
Political Science graduate students at Ohio State can take advantage of three unique resources: the Political Research Laboratory, the Mershon Center and the John Glenn Institute.
The Political Research Laboratory
The PRL is a faculty, graduate student, and staff resource for the Department of Political Science. It supports the Department’s computing infrastructure including network services, desktop services, websites, databases, and software. The PRL services include two computer classrooms and several computer labs, some specifically for graduate use, with high speed printing, scanning, and copying. Department labs provide access to expensive statistical software and high end computational machines to give graduates the ability to research without heavy financial investment. The PRL also maintains an experiment lab for running research with actual participants.
The Program in Statistics and Methodology (PRISM) group is available for advising and helping students with statistical and computational questions in many modern software packages (e.g. R, Stata, SPSS). Both PRL and PRISM do their best to assist graduate students with any computational or computer related questions.
The Mershon Center
The Mershon Center for the Study of International Security supports research on topics of international security and focuses its research on four key areas: (1) The use of force and diplomacy in international relations. (2) The study of political and economic decision-making that affects war and peace. (3) Culture and Identity and their impact on national security. (4) Law and institutional management of violent inter-group conflict that might arise from a variety of causes, including conflicting material interests, normative beliefs or resource scarcity and usage. The Mershon Center supports research conducted by Ohio State faculty and students and hosts several competitions each year. Through its annual Faculty Grant Competition, Mershon encourages collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects within the University and with other institutions around the world. Faculty members from numerous departments around the University benefit from research support. The Mershon Center offers Mershon Research and Study Abroad Grants for Students, which supports the research goals of Ohio State undergraduate and graduate students who seek funding for travel to conduct research or take accredited courses abroad in topics related to international security studies. Applications for this competition are reviewed during winter quarter. The Mershon Center also funds Mershon Center Dissertation Fellows. This competition is for graduate students within one year of completing their Ph.D. whose research complements the four main research foci of the center. These competitive fellowships provide a stipend, office space, and computer for students nearing completion of their degree. In addition to supporting university faculty and student research, the Mershon Center routinely hosts speakers for talks, conferences, and symposia. Scholars as well as policy makers come to the Center from around the world are frequent visitors. The Center is currently running several speakers series, including the National Security Speaker Series, the Citizenship Speaker Series, the Political Economy and National Security Speaker Series, and the Graduate Workshop in Diplomatic History. For more information, see the Mershon Center Events Calendar at mershoncenter.osu.edu
