volume 7 Issue 1
Fallout from the battle for overseas students
Global competition among universities for overseas students is ever increasing. PAUL FLATHER reviews the benefits – and the costs – of this with views from the Europaeum partner institutions.
Last
year, Oxford circulated a an internal discussion document heralding a
series of reforms including a dramatic policy switch – a plan to reduce
the number of British undergraduates by 1,000 (or 9 percent) over the
next few years, aiming to replace them, deliberately, with overseas
History in Leiden, Paris and Oxford
Last year's Europaeum MA programme in European History and Civilisation, offered its pilot group of participants – five students, one each from Britain and Latvia, and three (including yours truly) from the Netherlands – an educational experience which was truly unique and highly inspiring.
News in Brief: Europaeum MA forges on
The Europaeum's pioneering MA in European History and Civilisation was formally launched last September at Leiden University, with an inaugural lecture on European History: Union or Disunion by Professor Jean-Philipe Genet, the Academic Programme Director in Paris, and Professor of History at Paris I. A pilot year was successfully held in 2004-5.
News in Brief: Four more Jenkins Scholars
Four more Jenkins Scholars have been elected for the 2005-06 academic year, two awards to be taken up at Oxford, and two at Europaeum universities.
The scholarship scheme honours the lifelong devotion to Europe of Roy Jenkins, former President of the European Commission and Chancellor of the University of Oxford. It is linked to the Europaeum, which the late Lord Jenkins also helped found in the 1990s.
A new European Agenda for Corporate Governance
A spate of scandals put corporate governance on the agenda. Here ALASTAIR ROSS GOOBEY and RONALD GRIERSON discuss the merits and demerits of investor activism
Institutional Activism: Pros and Cons
Alastair Ross Goobey
When I talk about institutional activism I mean going well beyond what you would call normal corporate monitoring, and actually intervening in companies in some way.
News in Brief: Economists meet in Bologna
The workshop on Factors, goods, externalities, institutions and mobility in Europe and beyond aimed to foster new collaborative research among Europaeum partners, with a focus on integration issues.
News in Brief: Brief to study social security
The Europeum is supporting a new research group linking the universities of Paris, Helsinki, Prague and Ghent, studying the expanding field of international and European social security law.
The new group, led by Professor Francis Kessler from Paris I, had its first meeting in Ghent last November, also supported by Maija Basklin (Helsinki), Igor James (Prague) and Yves Jorens (Ghent).
The group is focussing on the social protection of the ageing worker, as influenced by European and international social security law.
Anglo-French relations in need of cordialite
What is it with the relationship across the Channel? JEAN-CLAUDE SERGEANT examines the past and points towards the future
It is ironic that the celebration of the centenary of the Entente cordiale agreements in 2004 should have taken place in such an embittered atmosphere. The disagreement over the future of the Common Agricultural Policy at the Paris Summit of October 2002, which led to the postponement of the planned Summit meeting between Blair and Chirac, added fuel to the growing resentment over the handling of the Iraqi problem. France was subsequently widely blamed as the villain who had blocked the 2 nd UN Resolution which the British Government – and less demonstrably the US Administration – so desperately needed.
News in Brief: Seeking science policy in Europe
The Europaeum is planning to further widen its range of subject areas this autumn by supporting a special research workshop reviewing current Europaeum science policy, and producing recommendations for future developments to share within the association and to forward to the European Commission.
News in Brief: New theology centre for Bonn
In Summer 2005 the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn will establish the Centre for Religion and Society.
The Centre will be designed to function as an Institute of Advanced Study. “The Centre will involve all disciplines dealing with the study of the relations between religions and between religions and society, and it will aim to provide assistance for projects in this area of research”, explained Professor Wolfram Kinzig, the founding academic.
Russians Rock Conflict Management Role of OSCE
The OSCE is at a crossroads. Will the West be able to save it from its Russian headache? asks VICTOR-YVES GHEBALI. It should try.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe stands at the nexus between NATO, the European Union and the Council of Europe. It occupies a specific niche where it performs four basic functions: security dialogue, standard-setting and monitoring of commitments, technical assistance and conflict management. Asked to explain what Communism was bringing to Russia, Lenin once asserted: "The Soviets plus electricity". From a comparable shorthand perspective, one might consider that the OSCE's contribution to European security basically lies in "conflict management plus election monitoring and assistance to democratisation."
Memories of a Jenkins Scholar up at Oxford
MICHAL BOBEK, the first elected Jenkins Scholar, recalls a venerable Oxford as he saw it studying law at St. Edmund Hall
News in Brief: Dialogue promoted across the Atlantic
The Europaeum is preparing to run an international conference focusing on the future state of US-Europe relations including questions of anti-Americanism and anti-Europeanism, to be held in the US in late 2006 or early 2007.
Bridging the Groves of British and German Academe
The movement of academic staff between partner universities is central to the mission of the Europaeum. It promotes the exchange of ideas and provides opportunities for collaborative projects. The Europaeum Visiting Professorship programme, founded in 2001, also provides insights into our different academic cultures, as MICHAEL WOLTER and JOHN BARTON found out during their EVP exchange between Bonn and Oxford. They Share their experiences below.
Michael Wolter
The first thing any German professor of biblical studies who spends two weeks as a visiting professor at a British university such as Oxford is likely to learn, is that academic discourse also has a geographical dimension.
Krakow adds polish to the Europaeum
Last year one of Europe's oldest universities, the Jagiellonian, formally became the 10th member of the Europaeum. Here we profile the institution.
Krakow veritably hums with activity these days. The local Mayor wants to turn the Polish city into a hub for a regional hi-tech area. Local citizens still mourn the passing of their Papa – Pope John Paul II. Tourists come in ever-larger flocks to enjoy the ambiance of one of Europe's finest city centres. Men in dark suits seek to re-position their business in what is seen as opportunity city
