Europaeum Bulletin, March 2010

In March's issue:

• Forthcoming Events: Paris and Helsinki Migration workshops
• Programmes: Europaeum MA deadline, and Graduate Research Workshops series continues in Oxford and Leiden
  
• Scholarships & Grants: Europaeum History MA bursary;  Oxford-Geneva scholar selected; and the Europaeum-El Pomar Junior fellowship relaunched
  
• Publications & Media: new Europaeum Academic Registrar
  
• Report-of-the-Month: John Temple Lang on the fallout from Lisbon + launch of a debate-of-the-month
• Link-of-the-Month: GESIS offers ideas for data sharing and research development
  
• Around the Members: Finns cope with new Reform Bill; Sir Ian Brownlie (Oxford)
  
• Footnote-of-the-Month:  Bologna Process - 10 years on...
• Endnote-of-the-Month:  A new Portuguese "associate member"

Forthcoming Events

Migration Perception & Experiences - Paris conference

The International Students of History Association in Helsinki is organising its annual conference this year around the theme of Integration Throughout History, due to take place April 5-11th 2010 in Helsinki. The Europaeum is co-supporting this event as part of our Connecting Europe through History – Experiences and Perceptions of Migrations Project. Speakers from our partner universities, including Professor Juhana Aunesluoma from Helsinki University, are due to participate. See preliminary programme here.

All current Europaeum History students are encouraged to attend. Please get in touch directly with the organiser : Marko Halonen. A few Europaeum grants of €200 may be available towards costs.

Europaeum Student Debate

Europaeum graduates will again be offered bursaries to take part in a special international debate as part of the annual international conference and summer school hosted by the Institute for Political Studies, Catholic University of Portugal (IEP-UCP).

This year's theme is on Political Dimensions of the Economic Crisis: The Future of the Market Economy and Democracy and will include a special debate on Can Democracy Work without a Market Economy? with graduates from the Europaeum, IEP-UCP, Boston University, Brown University, Georgetown University, and the LSE. The debate will be chaired by Dr Paul Flather (Secretary General, Europaeum), with expert moderators Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky (Member of the Board, IFES, Oxford) and Professor Eusebio Mujal-Leon (Georgetown University, Washington DC).

Click here for a copy of the preliminary Programme. Interested Europaeum graduate students should contact the office for more information if they wish to attend - or apply for a debate bursary which is worth €500 and will include travel, conference costs, accommodation and special dinners. 

Programmes

MA in European History - Leiden, Paris, Oxford

As a main deadline for applications for the Europaeum’s pioneering MA in European History and Civilisation with terms spent at Leiden, Paris and Oxford, approaches fast - April 1st - we can announce the results of our five-year student evaluation.  Overall rates of satisfaction were very high, - and clearly these have increased down the years,with the first year wishing there had been a formal awards ceremony - now an established feature - and more time at Oxford - which is also possible with earlier arrival. All centres were enjoyed - highest overall satisfaction was with the Oxford  (which in summer while working on a dissertation may be hard to beat); strong response for Leiden, and good response for Paris where housing etc is more of a difficulty. Please see here a summary of results plus a selection of anonymous quotes taken from evaluation forms.

The final deadline is June 1st for late or later applications. For students view on the course see the article from the Europaeum Review. This year's cohort is now in the second half of the Paris module and will be arriving in Oxford in Spring where they will focus on their dissertations with seminars and specific tutorials, and of course the full range of university lectures. For further information, see Application details on our website. Please distribute the attached poster to students and colleagues

Graduate Research Workshops - Oxford and Leiden

In Oxford, we are organising a special Graduate Research Workshop is Migration, Ethnicity & the Making of 20th Century Europe on May 21st - 22nd 2010 hosted by the University of Oxford Faculty of History. Keynote speakers will include Professor Robert Evans (Regius Professor of History), Professor Peter Pulzer (Emeritus Professor of Government).

A further Graduate Research Workshop on Migration, Political Parties and Rhetoric in contemporary Europe - will take place in Leiden from 4th – 6th June 2010. This workshop will investigate the effects of migration and migratory laws and the impact these have on politics and political parties, and how political parties respond to migration and migrants. Thus, how migration affects the discourse, activities and policy positioning of political parties, as well as patterns of competition and co-operation between political parties. Simultaneously, government policy, political discourse and public opinion affect processes and rates of migration, as well as relations between migrants and host communities. Interested graduate students should apply now to  the Europaeum office where more information can be sought.

These two events will form part of our Connecting Europe through History programme – looking at Experiences and Perceptions of Migrations project, run in partnership with Euroclio teachers' association and the International Students of History Association, which continues with lectures, conferences, and roundtable discussions with teachers and scholars from across Europe throughout the year.

Scholarships and Grants

Europaeum MA Scholarship

The Europaeum is offering a bursary worth €2,500 to support one outstanding student on the Europaeum MA in European History and Civilisation at Oxford, Leiden and Paris, starting in late September. This Europaeum scholarship is open only to recent graduates of Jagiellonian University, Krakow, and Charles University, Prague (applicants must have graduated within the last two or three years). For applications, please apply to the MA Programme via Leiden University, indicating you wish to be considered for this award.

Oxford-Geneva Links

The Europaeum has selected two students for the Oxford-Geneva study bursaries for 2010. One supports an Oxford graduate student to pursue a programme of study at The Graduate Institute, Geneva, and one to support a student from The Graduate Institute to study at Oxford during the coming academic year.

The Oxford bursary winner is Kubo Mačák, of Somerville College (MPhil), who will be consulting with prominent scholars at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, on the internationalization of armed conflict. Please see the full press release.

Europaeum TransAtlantic Award

The El Pomar - Europaeum TransAtlantic Junior Fellowship allows a young research scholar to spend up to three weeks at the El Pomar Foundation in Colorado, followed by two weeks in Washington DC. The first Fellowship was awarded in 2007 to Mateo Ballester Rodriguez, an assistant professor in Politics at the Compultense University, Madrid. He attended seminars, visits and meetings with senior political and defence advisers in Colorado before taking up an internship at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in Washington, where he wrote in briefing on the Georgian Crisis.

All costs including travel, visas and accommodation will be covered under the scheme. Successful candidates will be invited to submit an occasional, perhaps weekly, blog of their work, thoughts, activities, together with an end of scheme report. They are also expected to use the Fellowship to develop a paper on some aspect linked to the USA visit.

Details are attached. Applications for the 2010 award are now invited from doctoral or post-doctoral students at Europaeum universities. Applicants are asked to send applications to their local Europaeum Liaison Officer and to the central  office. All applications including letter of intent, demonstrating your interest in the event, a short CV (max. 2 pages), and one or two references, confirmation of availability and ability to visit the US, must be received by 30th April, 2010.

Publications & Media

Europaeum Academic Registrar 

The Europaeum is working on developing a new feature which will list leading academics, researchers, intellectuals, and collaborators who have worked with the Europaeum over the past decade, to allow others seeking collaborators to do an easy search. We have now sent draft entries to some 60 key academic colleagues, and once these have been cleared, they will be put up in the website in May, and others will be invited to join the Register so that we can build up a fairly comprehensive facility.

Please have a look at our  new-look website which we are rolling out this month - we would welcome  any comments and feedback. We will be continuing to add copy over the coming weeks as time permits - and bringing more new features into play.

Report of the Month

Professor John Temple Lang, former senior Brussels insider, who works with Cleary Gottlieb based in the thick of the Brussels European hot-house, who has been a good friend of the Europaeum for many years now, had a lively lecture on the theme The New EU Treaties - Institutional Problems Ahead?  on February 19th at the Law Faculty, University of Oxford. The event, which attracted more than 120 students and scholars, was kindly supported by the the Wallenberg Foundation. Discussion was initiated by Dr Chris Bickerton, from the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford and the event was chaired by Professor Ulf Bernitz, from the Institute of European and Comparative Law, Oxford, which was founded in the 1990s very much under the auspices of the Europaeum and its initial funding drive. Please click here to view the lecture transcript . The convener was Dr Katja Ziegler, Faculty of Law, Oxford, who took part in the Prague Europe at Crossroads conference.

Professor Temple Lang last gave a distinguished Europaeum Lecture on The Commission and the European Parliament after Nice, at Mansfield College, University of Oxford in November 2000.

Link-of-the-Month

GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

GESIS is an institution that provides substantial, nationally and internationally relevant research-based infrastructure services. Based upon extensive research programs GESIS provides services in data (archiving, provision, processing, research, social monitoring), methodology (consultation, developing complex methods), and specialized information (databases containing information on social science literature and research activities). GESIS develops tools and standards for all its service areas and offers continuing education schemes and events on methodology which exceed courses available in the context of university education.

GESIS also produces a free newsletter called "Social Science News" which offers current information on conferences, workshops, and summer schools as well as on promotional programmes, grants, networks and job advertisements. This Service is designed for students and scientists studying or working in all areas of social sciences. Please click here to view the current issue.

Around the Members:

HELSINKI: Coping with the new university reforms

As Finnish authorities - including our good colleagues at the University of Helsinki - wrestle with a historic Universities Reform Act , which came into force at the beginning of the year promising to extend the autonomy of universities and finally after almost two centuries give them a truly independent 'legal personality', reports reach us of strikes and opposition (see http://www.helsinki.fi/university reform/index.html). The University of Helsinki, now a public-law corporation, has unveiled a 10-year plan  based on using their powers to enter into commitments in their own name, acquire rights, hold real and personal property, conduct business operations to support their main tasks of research and teaching, and acquire additional funding through donations. However with University staff now no longer  employed by the state, there are fresh concerns and unions are now preparing for their first strikes since 1986. (see University World News website)

Meanwhile the University aims to boost its international and research standing. Helsinki, already in the very top 15 batch of European universities, receives some 25 per cent of the funding granted by the Academy of Finland, and with new freedom to set up new projects, new priorities and, perhaps most significant of all, new contracts, there are hopes to go further. Now 17 of the Academy’s 41 Centres of Excellence and 40 per cent of the 307 appointed researchers - are based at the University. Helsinki also did well in the first round of applications to the European Research Council - taking 7 out of 16 funded Finnish projects. Click here for more official information on the Act.

OXFORD: The passing of Sir Ian Brownlie

Professor Sir Ian Brownlie QC, who recently died in a car accident in Egypt where he was on holiday, was an international lawyer who was as successful in practice as he was in academia. A longtime supporter of the Europaeum, Sir Ian gave a memorable Europaeum Lecture at The Graduate Institute, Geneva on International Law and the Use of Force by States in 2001. This inaugural lecture launched our series of Europaeum Oxford-Geneva Lectures.

Sir Ian  was a practicing barrister, a Member of the International Law Commission, Fellow of the British Academy since 1979, Emeritus Chichele Professor of Public International Law, and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford (1980-99).  He was the author of numerous works including International Law and the Use of Force by States (1963); Principles of Public International Law (first published in 1966, now in its fifth edition); State Responsibility (1983); and a General Course on International Law given at the Hague Academy of International Law in 1995. As a renowned international lawyer, he had vast experience in international litigation, and having acted as counsel in numerous cases before the International Court of Justice, including Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United Kingdom) and Legality of Use of Force (Yugoslavia v. 10 NATO countries).

Footnote-of-the-Month

Bologna: 10 years on, the saga continues.......

European ministers are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their Bologna accord to try to standardise higher education across Europe in a 'European Higher Education Zone'. Yet their deliberations in Budapest and Vienna are being met by strikes in many countries, downright opposition in others, and apathy in still others. Our friends at the World University Service are reporting on this opposition with a special report from Greece.

Endnote

The Europaeum is unveiling a new Associate Membership distinction designed for smaller research institutes, think-tanks, and university departments that share our mission to promote academic links between European institutions. The first associate member is the Instituto de Estudos Políticos da Universidade Católica Portuguesa (IEP-UCP), a most successful Political Studies department based at the Catholic University, Lisbon. The IEP-UCP is the only is the only Portuguese institution (amongst 19 such acknowledged ) included in the ranking of the World’s Top Public Policy Research Organizations. Click here to view the full listing.

The IEP-UCP has collaborated with the Europaeum for a number of years (see international debate above)Links thereby strengthening our ties to Portuguese academia. In the past, the IEP-UCP has worked with the Europaeum on joint events such as the Brussels policy-making seminars, helped to fund Portuguese students on   the Europaeum MA in European History and Civilisation, and regularly includes a special international graduate student debate led by Europaeum students at its annual summer school - conference.

The Europaeum welcomes the Institute and looks forward to further successful collaborations !