„Obtaining a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral grant is challenging but not impossible,” says Michal Strnad, a graduate of VŠE

Ing. Michal Strnad, Ph.D., a doctoral graduate from VŠE, has been awarded the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship, through which he will focus on the relatively unexplored phenomenon of ethno-regionalist movements in the European Union. What role do these movements play in political affairs, what strategies do they use, and why are they key to understanding sub-state nationalism? In this interview, Michal Strnad discusses his journey to securing this grant and the ambitious goals of his research.

Mr. Strnad, first of all, congratulations on receiving the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship! Could you tell us what exactly this fellowship entails and what it means for your career development?

Thank you very much! The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA PF) falls under postdoctoral scholarship programs. It provides funding for research and career development for recent doctoral graduates, specifically within eight years of earning their degree. MSCA PF is part of Horizon Europe, the European Union’s main research and innovation funding program. There are two variants: European and Global. The European variant, which I have been awarded, allows the recipient to spend up to two years at a prestigious academic research institution anywhere in the EU. In addition to conducting independent research in collaboration with a chosen mentor, the program places great emphasis on developing key competencies necessary for independent academic work. Applicants can propose any research project, provided they justify its feasibility and social relevance, and they can tailor their skill development as long as it aligns with the project’s objectives. Since I aim to specialize as a political science methodologist, my focus has been on developing skills in quantitative (statistical) methods and programming for software-based data analysis.

The MSCA grant is highly competitive and supports postdoctoral researchers in their professional development. What led you to apply for this grant, and what did the application process require from you?

Although I had no initial expectations upon entering university, I found my passion in the analytical-theoretical dimension of international politics. Pursuing a Ph.D. was a natural next step, deepening this interest, and it became clear long before my dissertation defense that an academic career was the ideal path for me. Securing a postdoctoral grant immediately after completing my doctorate was therefore a logical step in my professional development.

Competition for postdoctoral scholarships is extremely intense. The MSCA PF is undoubtedly the most prestigious postdoctoral fellowship in the EU and ranks among the most competitive research grants worldwide. The success rate varies between 10-20 %, depending on the field and the available funding in a given year. However, this percentage only represents the proportion of funded projects out of submitted applications. Since the application is officially submitted by the host university, candidates must first pass the institution’s internal selection process, where only the most promising proposals receive full support. At the School of International Studies, Università degli Studi di Trento, only three out of 17 applicants were selected, which corresponds to a success rate of about 17 %. I estimate the overall probability of securing an MSCA PF at my institution last year to be between 2-4 %.

Given such low probabilities, it was rational to do everything possible to maximize my chances. I contacted my prospective mentor about three-quarters of a year before the application deadline to thoroughly map out and define the research gap. I studied all application guidelines and best practices, which amounted to about 1,200 pages of materials. The application itself was approximately 30 pages long. I also submitted a nearly identical proposal for the GAČR Postdoc Individual Fellowship Outgoing, which I was awarded but declined due to my MSCA PF success. Additionally, I had a contingency plan to apply through the Czech Ministry of Education’s Jan Amos Komenský Operational Program, which funds MSCA projects scoring above 70 % but not supported by the EU due to capacity limits. The last MSCA PF-funded project in my Social Sciences and Humanities category scored 94/100, while my score was 99/100, so there was some margin.

The nine-month preparation process was ultimately worthwhile. However, it would have been much more difficult without continuous support from my home department, faculty and university, which provided me with nearly ideal conditions to focus on the application. I am immensely grateful to everyone involved and view this achievement as a collective effort. My project is set to commence on September 1 of this year.

Your research focuses on ethno-regionalist movements (ERMs) in the European Union. Could you explain what these movements represent and what their main goals are?

This issue needs to be placed within the broader context of sub-state nationalism. It refers to a phenomenon where regions with distinct ethno-political identities, such as Scotland or Catalonia, seek territorial empowerment—an increase in regional self-governance. Their demands can range from gaining administrative autonomy in areas like regional transport to the ultimate goal of declaring independence from the central state. Ethno-regionalist movements, or ERMs, constitute a third key actor alongside ethno-regionalist political parties and regional voters in advocating these territorial claims. While all ERMs are civil society organizations, they vary significantly in terms of membership size, radicalism, legal status and decision-making structures. They range from moderate student groups to paramilitary organizations like the IRA. I estimate there are several hundred ERMs across the EU.

What drew you to this topic? Why do you consider the study of ethno-regionalist movements important and what aspects of this topic have been neglected in current research?

Postdoctoral projects often build upon prior dissertation research. My dissertation analyzed the legislative initiatives of ethno-regionalist parties in the context of multi-level governance in the EU. In other words, I examined what types of legislation these vocal political actors introduce to enhance regional self-governance at various levels of representation, including regional parliaments, national legislatures, the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions. In parallel, I examined how these parties think about the possibility of increasing regional self-governance through the channels and instruments of European integration.

My postdoctoral research remains within the realm of sub-state nationalism in the EU but now focuses on a different key actor. While the preferences of ethno-regionalist parties and regional voters, as well as the supply-demand dynamics in territorial politics, are relatively well studied, we know very little about ERMs. They seem to operate in a vacuum—on one hand, they articulate territorial demands and communicate them to the public, yet they cannot be elected to parliaments, nor do their activities directly depend on voter preferences. Some of these organizations, such as Catalonia’s Omnium Cultural, boast substantial membership bases exceeding 100,000 members and can significantly influence public opinion.

At the same time, we observe three current trends among ERMs. First, a number of long-dormant organizations are reawakening under the pressure of various events. Some, such as those in Northern Ireland after Brexit, warn that they will take matters into their own hands if the protection or enhancement of regional self-governance is not achieved through political means. Second, and in connection with the previous point, many originally moderate ERMs are visibly radicalizing—both in the scope of their territorial demands and in the methods they employ to achieve them. The threat of a return to ethnic violence in European regions thus represents another destabilizing element in the already extensive polycrisis of the EU. Third, ERMs are beginning to emerge even in regions where they have historically never existed. Who are ERMs and how are they organized? What do they want and why? What strategies do they use to achieve their goals? These are the key questions I will focus on.

Your research employs an interdisciplinary approach involving political science, political geography and media communication. How does this approach help in understanding the complexity of ethno-regionalist movements?

Interdisciplinarity is a fundamental requirement of MSCA projects. The issue of ERMs itself is inherently interdisciplinary. To comprehensively analyze ERMs, insights from at least five disciplines—political science, political geography, anthropology, media studies and populism studies—must be integrated. My methodology involves a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The first phase consists of statistical analysis to identify factors influencing ERM characteristics such as territorial demands, membership size, organizational structure and radicalism. This will involve the creation of an original dataset encompassing all past and present ERMs, which will be publicly accessible and regularly updated even after the project concludes.

One of the key aspects of your research is the analysis of how these movements communicate on social media. How does this approach contribute to understanding their motivations, goals and behavior?

In the second follow-up phase, a social network analysis will be conducted. This step is directly related to the question of what means ERMs use to achieve their goals. As I have already mentioned, ERMs are highly diverse, which is also reflected in their communication with the public—while some organizations organize demonstrations or public events, others do not. However, what all ERMs have in common is content creation on social media.

What ERMs publish on social media, who their target audience is and what communication style they use provide a readily comparable source of data for analyzing their behavior. The analysis will be conducted based on posts from various social media platforms, using both quantitative methods to capture trends and qualitative methods to capture nuanced meanings.

Your research will also include interviews with members of these movements. What do you expect from these interviews and how can they enrich your findings about these organizations?

In the third and final phase, interviews will be conducted with representatives of selected ERMs. Including this method at the end serves the purpose of triangulation—that is, verifying and expanding insights gained from previous methods by adding an additional perspective.

The interviews will be semi-structured, meaning they will be structured enough to allow for comparisons between cases while remaining flexible enough to explore any emerging topics. To conduct these interviews, I plan three research trips of 5–7 days each, most likely to South Tyrol, Northern Ireland, and Corsica, given the high variability of ERMs in these regions.

As part of your research, you are collaborating with the Istituto Camillo Bellieni, a regional organization involved in public policy development. How does this collaboration contribute to a better understanding and applicability of your findings?

The inclusion of this organization is linked to intersectorality—that is, connecting the academic and non-academic sectors, which is, in fact, another requirement of the funding guidelines. The purpose of intersectorality is to facilitate the effective transfer of theoretical knowledge into practice. While such a transfer is more straightforward in natural and technical sciences, applicants in the Social Sciences and Humanities category also have the option to extend their project with a non-academic placement and spend an additional six months at a non-academic institution.

Collaboration with the Istituto di Studi e Ricerche Camillo Bellieni, a nonprofit organization specializing in the protection and promotion of ethno-regional minorities, languages, and territories, based in Sassari, Sardinia, brings added value on three levels.

First, the organization will be able to use the original findings from my primary research as a foundation for scientifically grounded policy recommendations for relevant stakeholders at the European, national, and regional levels concerning ERMs and ethno-regionalism more broadly. Istituto Camillo Bellieni is also the largest member of the Coppieters Foundation, a think tank affiliated with the European Free Alliance, a political group in the European Parliament that brings together over 40 ethno-regionalist parties. The direct link to policy-making is therefore evident.

The second level involves the transfer of methodological approaches to ethno-regionalism research. Istituto Camillo Bellieni conducts its own applied research. However, research methodologies in the nonprofit sector are often underdeveloped, making such research less replicable. To address this, I will share with internal researchers a theoretically grounded methodology designed for this project—specifically, how to operationalize the studied concepts, measure the observed variables, collect data, and apply analytical procedures using a mixed-methods approach.

Third, the regular events organized by this institute will serve as additional channels for sharing insights with the broader public, alongside other planned communication channels such as blogs, newspaper articles, and the project’s website.

Ing. Michal Strnad, Ph.D., completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of International Relations of the Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE) in the International Political Relations program. His research focuses on territorial politics, ethno-regionalism, sub-state nationalism, separatism, multi-level governance, and paradiplomacy, as well as on political science methodology and research methods.

In his dissertation research, he examined the relationship between European integration and sub-state nationalism, analyzing how ethno-regionalist parties utilize the formal structures of the EU to enhance self-governance. Specifically, he studied their legislative initiatives at the sub-state, national, and supranational levels, including the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions, in combination with an analysis of their speeches in regional parliamentary plenaries.

His article Multi-level empowerment strategies: regionalist territory-oriented legislative initiative in the regional, statewide and European parliamentary arenas, published in Party Politics (Q1 WoS), was awarded joint first place in the VŠE Rector’s Award for doctoral research publications in 2024. His article In search for more ‘authentic’ EU attitudes: re-evaluating regionalist parties’ EU positioning from sub-state parliamentary debates, published in Territory, Politics & Governance (Q2 WoS), received second place in the 2023 VŠE Rector’s Award. For his academic achievements, he was also awarded the prestigious Josef Hlávka Prize.