Text and Policy Research Group

The Text and Policy Research Group comprises researchers from Germany, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, and the United States. We are based in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin.

The research group applies computational text analysis methods to address substantive questions and provide policy recommendations. Our current projects focus on legislative politics, political communication, higher education policy, climate and energy policies, and “research on research”. The Handbook (PDF) contains our values, advice, and best practices.

We provide consultancy services to organisations in both the private and public sectors through ConsultUCD. Our consultancy services can be customised to meet your specific needs. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Current Team Members

Stefan Müller (Group Leader)

Associate Professor

Sarah King

PhD Researcher

Funding: UCD Iseult Honohan Doctoral Scholarship

Jihed Ncib

PhD Researcher

Funding: Ad Astra PhD Scholarship

Mafalda Zúquete

PhD Researcher

Funding: PhD Studentship, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology

Robin Rauner

Research Scientist

Funding: NexSys; Science Foundation Ireland

Former Team Members

Brian Boyle

Lecturer with tenure at Newcastle University

Previously Postdoctoral Researcher in NexSys Project

Alberto de León

Postdoctoral Researcher at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Previously Postdoctoral Researcher in Project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation

Yen-Chieh Liao

Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham

Previously Postdoctoral Researcher in NexSys Project

Research Projects

Assessing and Explaining Environmental and Energy Policies in Comparative Perspective

Researchers: Stefan Müller, Brian Boyle, Yen-Chieh Liao, and Robin Rauner

Project Summary: Political parties, politicians, companies, and interest groups increasingly discuss how to achieve a net-zero carbon emissions future, but systematic evidence that tracks these political debates is still lacking. The project seeks to identify the problems political actors raise and solutions they offer regarding renewable energy, sustainability, and water treatment. The project will also assess how companies and interest groups aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help mitigate the impacts of climate change. By combining quantitative text analysis, human coding, and supervised machine learning, it will define and map (proposed) policies relating to the environment and sustainability, and provide recommendations for policymakers.

Funding: Next Generation Energy Systems (NexSys)

Publications:

Analysing Grant Peer Review Reports Using Machine Learning

Researchers: Stefan Müller and Alberto de León

Project Summary: Peer review plays an essential role in grant evaluation. External peer review reports by international experts contribute to assessing the feasibility and quality of grant applications and provide an essential basis for funding decisions. This research project analyses the texts of anonymised grant review reports along several dimensions using human coding and machine learning. We seek to conceptualise characteristics of grant peer review reports and classify a large corpus of review reports. The project investigates whether strategic initiatives and new evaluation procedures have the desired effects on the content and structure of review reports.

Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation

Papers:

Events

Presentations at Conferences and Workshops

  • 13 January 2025: Research on Research Institute: Steering Group on Narrative CVs; Presenter: Stefan Müller
  • 5–6 December 2024: PSAI Postgraduate Conference, Dublin; Presenters: Sarah King, Jihed Ncib, Mafalda Zúquete
  • 18–20 October 2024: Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association of Ireland, Dublin; Presenters: Sarah King, Stefan Müller, Jihed Ncib, Robin Rauner, Mafalda Zúquete
  • 12–15 August 2024: ECPR General Conference 2024, Dublin; Presenters: Alberto de León, Yen-Chieh Liao, Stefan Müller
  • 4–6 July 2024: Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association (EPSA), Cologne; Presenters: Alberto de León, Yen-Chieh Liao, Stefan Müller
  • 23–28 June 2024: Video Research Institute (VRI) Summer School, Center for C-SPAN Scholarship & Engagement, Purdue University; Participant: Mafalda Zúquete
  • 19 June 2024: Irish Policy Agendas Workshop, Dublin; Presenter: Stefan Müller
  • 2–4 May 2024: 6th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference, Amsterdam; Presenters: Alberto de León, Yen-Chieh Liao, Stefan Müller
  • 25–26 April 2024: Workshop “The Rural-Urban Cleavage in the XXI Century”, Barcelona; Presenter: Alberto de León
  • 4–7 April 2024: Annual Midwest Political Science Association Conference (MPSA), Chicago; Presenter: Jihed Ncib
  • 19 January 2024: Launch Event of the UCD Centre for Democracy, Dublin; Presenter: Stefan Müller
  • 20–22 October 2023: Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association of Ireland, Belfast; Presenters: Sarah King, Stefan Müller, Jihed Ncib
  • 30 August–3 September 2023: Annual Meeting of American Political Science Association (APSA), Los Angeles; Presenter: Yen-Chieh Liao
  • 6–8 July 2023: Standing Group on Parliaments of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), Vienna; Presenter: Yen-Chieh Liao
  • 22–24 June 2023: Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association (EPSA), Glasgow; Presenters: Brian Boyle, Alberto de León, Yen-Chieh Liao, Stefan Müller, Jihed Ncib
  • 22 May 2023: Governance and Political Organisations Workshop, Newcastle University; Presenters: Brian Boyle
  • 12–13 May 2023 – COMPTEXT Conference, Glasgow; Presenters: Brian Boyle, Alberto de León
  • 12 April 2023 – GESIS Cologne; Presenter: Jihed Ncib
  • 4 April 2023 – CCCP Research Seminar, University of Cologne; Presenter: Jihed Ncib
  • 23 March 2023 – The Connected_Politics Lab Workshop Series: An Introduction to Webscraping Using R; Presenter: Sarah King
  • 24 February 2023 – DPIR Politics Colloquium, University of Oxford; Presenter: Stefan Müller
  • 11–14 January 2023: Annual Conference of the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA), New Orleans: Presenter: Yen-Chieh Liao

Brown Bag Sessions

Past Events

  • 6 November 2024 – Presenter: Robin Rauner
  • 15 October 2024 – Presenter: Mafalda Zúquete
  • 9 October 2024 – Presenter: Jihed Ncib
  • 15 May 2024 – Presenter: Sarah King
  • 22 April 2024 – Presenter: Mafalda Zúquete
  • 12 April 2024 – Presenter: Alberto de León
  • 25 March 2024 – Presenter: Jihed Ncib
  • 21 February 2024 – Presenter: Stefan Müller
  • 24 January 2024 – Presenter: Yen-Chieh Liao
  • 6 December 2023 – Presenter: Mafalda Zúquete
  • 22 November 2023 – Presenter: Alberto de Léon
  • 8 November 2023 – Presenter: Jihed Ncib and Sarah King
  • 11 October 2023 – Presenter: Yen-Chieh Liao
  • 10 May 2023 – Presenter: Jihed Ncib
  • 20 April 2023 – Presenter: Alberto de León
  • 6 April 2023 – Presenter: Sarah King
  • 9 March 2023 – Presenter: Brian Boyle
  • 16 February 2023 – Presenter: Stefan Müller

Workshops

Past Events

  • 28 February 2024: Data Visualization; Instructor: Mafalda Zúquete
  • 8 December 2023: Webscraping for Social Scientists, Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin; Instructor: Sarah King
  • 30 November 2023: An Introduction to Webscraping Using R, University College Dublin; Instructor: Sarah King
  • 15 November 2023: Reproducible Research with Git and GitHub, University College Dublin; Instructor: Stefan Müller
  • 1 August 2023: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program in Quantitative Methods, University of Michigan; Introduction to Keyword Assisted Topic Models; Instructor: Sarah King
  • 10 & 23 March 2023: Quantitative Text Analysis using R and quanteda, University of Bergen; Instructor: Stefan Müller
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