Three student assistants

Job Opportunity

The Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB) is seeking three student assistants at the Center for Civil Society Research starting on 1 December 2026 for an initial period until 30 September 2027 (with the possibility of extension) with a weekly working time of 10-15 hours.

We are looking for student assistants in three different focal areas. Please specify in your application for which position you are applying and focus your letter of motivation on the specific project. 

The WZB is the leading social science research institute in Germany and stands among the world’s most renowned institutes in this field. At the WZB, researchers from around the world with diverse methodological and disciplinary backgrounds—including sociology, political science, economics, and law—conduct research. They engage in problem-oriented basic research that addresses major societal challenges. The research is theory-driven, practice-oriented, often long-term, and internationally comparative. At the same time, the WZB promotes the exchange between research and society in various formats.

The WZB is a nonprofit limited liability company (GmbH) and a member of the Leibniz Association. It is funded by the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Berlin.

 

Position 1: Manifesto Project

The Manifesto Project collects and analyses parties’ election manifestos using comparative content analysis. With the support of country experts the project analyses manifesto from over 60 countries, spanning from 1945 to the present. The project team coordinates the data generation and the data analysis. It works with a complex technical infrastructure that is continuously developed.  The project’s main goal is to provide the scientific community with a large text corpus of party manifestos, and dataset of policy positions derived from the these manifestos. 

Tasks

• support of the team in written communication with the country experts and the preparation of work contracts
• administrative and organisational preparation of workshops and conferences
• support in the processing of election programs and content analytical data

Requirements:

• enrollment in a degree program in political science or a related social science, at least in the third semester of a BA program or enrolled in an MA
• strong interest in comparative research on parties, elections and democracy
• very good command of English and German
• ability to work independently

Preferred Qualifications

• proficiency in statistical software (e.g., R or Stata)
• experience with LaTeX
• experience in organizational and coordination tasks
• knowledge of additional foreign languages

 

Position 2: PALS Survey

The first phase of the Public Attitudes towards the Liberal Script (PALS) survey provided the most comprehensive picture to date of global support for and opposition to the liberal script. Conducted in 30 countries with approximately 60,000 respondents, the PALS survey identified systematic differences in citizens' attitudes toward core liberal principles and revealed both cross-national and structural patterns in their underlying determinants. The project team at WZB is preparing the next phase of this cross-national survey. 

Tasks

• support PALS 2.0 survey preparation (questionnaire design, documentation, QA), data preparation, preliminary analyses
• conduct literature reviews and prepare scientific summaries
• assist with basic administrative research tasks
• additional general student assistant duties

Requirements

• enrolment in a social science degree program (e.g., Political Science, Sociology, Data Science, or a related discipline); at least in the third semester of a BA program or enrolled in an MA
• very good skills in handling quantitative data and extensive experience with at least one statistical software package (preferably R or Stata)
• ability to conduct literature searches and prepare concise summaries of scientific work
• excellent written and spoken English

Preferred Qualifications

• strong interest in survey research, political sociology, comparative politics, and/or public opinion research
• knowledge of questionnaire design and experience in cross-national survey analysis

 

Position 3: Knowledge Exchange

The Center for Civil Society Research conducts research on the foundations, self-understanding, and transform