Vanderbilt Research on Conflict and Collective Action (ROCCA) Lab

The Research on Conflict and Collective Action (ROCCA) Lab opened at Vanderbilt University in January 2019. The ROCCA Lab is a partnership between undergraduate students, faculty members, and their assisting graduate students to produce critical, high-quality, social science research on political violence and collective action problems, primarily stemming from International Relations (IR). A central aspect of the ROCCA Lab is the course component which many of the undergraduate researchers enroll in. The course emphasizes research skills training and professionalization workshops, alongside assignments that correlate with research conducted in small teams. Additionally, students can become involved with the ROCCA Lab as paid undergraduate researchers outside of the course through funding by the Immersion Vanderbilt program or work in the ROCCA Lab to produce honors thesis research. The course component of the lab provides a platform for students to partake in discussions about successes and challenges that they have encountered during the research process each week. Through opening up at round-table discussions, students are able to provide one another with suggestions and work together through the challenges that arise from the research process. This lab offers opportunities for both the tangible production of research and the achievement of learning objectives related to the fundamentals of the research process. Undergraduate researchers, under the supervision of IR faculty mentors and graduate mentors, can expect to: - gain a greater understanding of international politics and the fundamentals of research, through direct experience with the process of research; - develop skills that will make them more effective researchers and more marketable job candidates after graduation from Vanderbilt; and - be able to articulate both short- and long-term personal and professional goals and have concrete plans for achieving them.