The 2016 Czesław Mojsiewicz Best PhD Dissertation Award from the Polish Political Science Association went to Dr Joanna Mormul. The award ceremony was held on 1^st February 2018 at the plenary session that opened the 28th International Scientific Conference “Europe of the 21st century” at the Collegium Polonicum in Słubice. The laureate was awarded together with her PhD thesis supervisor, Prof. Robert Kłosowicz.

The award-winning doctoral dissertation The problem of state dysfunctionality in Luso-African countries was defended in January 2016 in the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations of the Jagiellonian University. The author has a PhD degree in social sciences (political science) and is a graduate of international relations and Spanish philology at the Jagiellonian University. She has also completed a three-year Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies SET (Society-Environment-Technology) program and courses related to social science methodology organized by Stellenbosch University and the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was also awarded a scholarship by the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF), which she executed as a visiting scholar at the University of Manchester.

Dr Joanna Mormul is an assistant professor at the Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations of the Jagiellonian University, and a member of the Jagiellonian Centre for African Studies. A book based on the awarded dissertation is to be published in 2018.

Dr Joanna Mormul with her PhD dissertation supervisor, Professor Robert Kłosowicz, and the President of the Polish Political Science Association, Professor Arkadiusz Żukowski