CITAS and the?Leibniz ScienceCampus Europe and America?offered a Prize for Outstanding Master's Theses in Area Studies at UR for the first time in 2020. The prize, now coordinated through DIMAS, promotes the development of research and teaching with relevance to area studies in the fields of social sciences, humanities, law and economics. It also demonstrates the value of the close cooperation between the?Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies?(IOS) and UR.?

Details of previous winners can be found on the archived CITAS pages. Information on the winners of the most recent prize can be found below.

Candidates can either nominate themselves or be nominated by their advisors. As well as students taking MA degrees, the prize is open to those completing Staatsexamen (in law for example) or those studying for a teaching degree. The next call for applications will be published in autumn 2024 with a deadline of 7 January 2025.

As well as prize money, the winners also have the chance to publish in the?Blog-Journal Frictions. Two winners of the prize in the inaugural edition,?Jana St?xen?and?Melanie Hussinger, have published aspects of their master’s thesis in contributions to the ScienceCampus’ blog-journal?Frictions.

Award of the 2023 Regensburg Prize for Outstanding Master’s Theses in Area Studies

In this fourth edition, the award ceremony of the 2023 Regensburg Prize for Outstanding Master’s Theses in Area Studies?took place on 4 July 2024 as part of the joint research colloquium of the Leibniz ScienceCampus and the Graduate School for Eastern and South East European Studies (GS OSES, UR). The prize is awarded jointly with DIMAS. Jan Hornát, visiting fellow at the ScienceCampus and Head of the Department of North American Studies, at the Faculty of Social Sciences of? Charles University in Prague gave a talk on US foreign policy in the 21st Century and its position towards “small states.”

The first prize of 400 EUR goes to?Felix Bruckner?who graduated with an MA in Public History & Kulturvermittlung. In his master’s thesis, titled "Die Grenze im Museum – Narrative einer von Bayern und B?hmen geteilten Grenzregion," he examined six museums located along the Bavarian-Bohemian border, tracing how they deal with concepts and motifs such as (un)naturalness, power and powerlessness, and divisions and connections. These include reflections on the very idea of a border and how this has been constructed historically – such as the Iron Curtain as something unnatural and environmentally – with the green belt offering a more connective narrative framework. In his work, he not only offered insight into museum practices and narratives but also a contribution to the broader field of border studies, applying a comparative and transregional approach tracing the historical dynamics of processes such as de/bordering.?His supervisors Prof. Marek Nekula and Prof. J?rg Skribeleit, together with the prize jury, were highly impressed by his in-depth analysis, the quality of the writing, and the breadth of conceptual and methodological approaches, which meant that it offers a genuinely original contribution to several fields.

In joint second place were the studies by Tizian Dick and Miriam M?hner. As part of his MA in economics,?Tizian Dick?wrote the thesis "Optimum Currency Area: Dynamics of Business Cycle Synchronization in the EMU."?In his study, he traced the dynamics at work in the European Monetary Union in terms of business cycles over the period from 1990 to 2022, examining to what extent they could be considered synchronized or not, likewise in relation to key crises during that period. His findings have clear policy implications for the ECB and others, as they consider how to shape monetary policy. As his supervisor Prof. Gabriel Lee noted, the empirical part of the study offers new insights into business cycles with a very solid methodology.

Miriam M?hner, who graduated in Ost-West-Studien with a master’s thesis titled "Religionsfrieden als Strategie interkonfessionellen Zusammenlebens in Ost und West. Ein diachroner Vergleich,"?explored in her study four religious peace settlements stretching from Nantes and Augustburg to Warsaw and Transylvania (Siebenbürgen). Through a critical, comparative analysis she sought to trace the actual historical significance of these peace settlements in the context of the Reformation and what they meant for interconfessional and transnational relations and the potential for violence. She was supervised by Prof. Natali Stegmann and Prof. Julia Herzberg, how at the GWZO in Leipzig, who commented that Miriam has worked through a challenging amount of comparative material, providing fresh insights into the political significance of religious peace settlements, while questioning the typical nation-centred interpretations of these documents. ?

We hope that our prize winners will publish their excellent studies in journals and also write a short contribution to the Frictions blog of the ScienceCampus.?We wish all three winners all the best for their future careers!

The call for applications to the next edition of the prize will be published in autumn 2024 with a deadline of 7 January 2025. Keep your eyes on this page for details.
A German version of the UR press release can be found?here.

Photo by Tanja Wagensohn (UR). Felix Bruckner (centre) with his supervisors Prof. Dr. J?rg Skriebeleit to the left and Prof. Dr. Marek Nekula to the right. On the very right, Tizian Dick, winner of one of the second prizes. On the left, Natali Stegmann, co-supervisor of Miriam M?hner, winner of the other second prize for 2023 (she was unable to attend in person).