Two “clusters of excellence” were awarded to the University of Konstanz, “The Politics of Inequality: Perceptions, Participation and Policies” and the “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour”. Ulf-Dietrich Reips is a principal investigator in the inequality cluster and a member of the collective behavior cluster. The research aims at questions that can only be answered in interdisciplinary collaboration and was awarded with substantial funding for 7 years (and likely extension to 14 years).

Drs. Vaka Vésteinsdóttir and Tim Kuhlmann both were awarded grants. Congratulations from the whole team!

Vaka Vésteinsdóttir, Ulf-Dietrich Reips and Fanney Thordsottir received a research grant from the Icelandic Government Equality Fund (Jafnréttissjóður). The main purpose of the survey methodology research is to examine factors that may affect evaluations of online teaching material in two different languages.

Tim Kuhlmann received an Independent Research Grant from the Zukunftskolleg to conduct research on the possibilities of using smartphones doing research in the behavioral and social sciences.

Welcoming our new team members, Deborah Canales (doctoral student), Vaka Vésteinsdóttir (postdoc), Nadja Younes (doctoral student), Laura Höhner and Leonie Ripper (student assistants), the iScience group held a week of team days with intensive exchange of research presentations, teaching and research guideline sessions, combining ideas, discussions, social events and an external talk on online ratings by crowds (“When the Stars Shine Too Bright: Assessing the Influence of Multi-Dimensional Ratings on Overall Evaluations”) given by Dr. Markus Weinmann from the University of Liechtenstein.

Most of our current Master and Bachelor students joined in with additional presentations about the current status of their work, current and past student assistants and tutors completed the crowd. Below a picture of one of the social events.

As of January 2018, Stefan Stieger became a full professor at the department of Psychology, Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, Austria; Eunike Wetzel became a junior professor at University of Mannheim, Germany. The team congratulates, way to go, Stefan and Eunike!