Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Canadian Political Scientist Conducts Research at Universität Heidelberg
23 April 2025
Daniel Béland is visiting the Institute for Political Science with funding from the Humboldt Foundation
Supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Canadian political scientist Prof. Dr Daniel Béland is currently a visiting scholar at Heidelberg University, where he will be conducting research at the Institute for Political Science in three stages. His host for the planned stays in 2025, 2026, and 2027 is Prof. Dr Jale Tosun, who leads a research group exploring regulatory issues within the European Union, among other topics. Alongside Prof. Tosun, the scholar from McGill University in Montreal will collaborate on a project focusing on public policy in federal systems. This follows his receipt of a Humboldt Research Award to fund his six-month stay.
“Through his work, Daniel Béland has made significant contributions to understanding the political processes in his home country, while also shaping international research on how the actions, goals and substantive decisions of all political actors interact,” says Prof. Tosun, who has previously collaborated with her Canadian colleague on earlier projects. In her words, Prof. Béland’s research has been particularly influential in the fields of territorial politics and the complex interplay between federalism, political stability and political change. During his time in Heidelberg, Prof. Béland will focus on the interaction between political processes, public policies and territorial factors such as specific forms of territorial identity in federal states. Daniel Béland is Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and teaches and does research in the Department of Political Science at McGill University.
The Humboldt Research Award is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Foreign Office, and is granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. It recognizes outstanding research achievements by internationally renowned scholars from outside Germany. The award aims to enable them to conduct their chosen research projects at an academic institution in Germany in collaboration with specialist colleagues.