Forthcoming Events:

Graduate Workshop: The Arab Spring – What Next ?
The Syrian crisis has given additional impetus to four forthcoming  graduate experts workshop on The Arab Spring One Year on: What next ? to be hosted at Paris 1-Sorbonne on March 22-24th. After taking stock of developments a year on, we will work together to  look ahead, with a focus especially on two pioneers for change - Tunisia and Egypt. Please apply right away -  places are for advanced students and young scholars, drawn from across our partner institutions. Speakers already confirmed include Slim Laghmani (University of Tunis), Mohammed Marouani (Paris 1), Nadine Picaudou (Paris 1), Lise Storm (University of Exeter), and Patrice Vermeren (Paris 1), among others. Click here to download the event Poster

The working language will be English - but some speakers will speak in French and we will arrange some translation as best we can. All costs at the event are covered for young Europaeum graduates, but note that participants must arrange their own travel costs. Please apply to the Europaeum Office as soon as possible, as spaces are limited. Interested participants should respond via e-mail with letter of application, a short CV (max. 2 pages), and a support from your supervising professor to the Europaeum Office no later than March 1st. 

Graduate Workshop: A Sustainable Europe ?
In April 2012 - just before the Rio +20 UN conference on sustainable development - the Europaeum is organising a three-day graduate workshop on Rio + 20: Challenges and Opportunities for Europe in building a Global Green Economy to be held at Charles University, Prague. Europe played a key role in the welcome 2011 fragile agreement  on cutting carbon emissions in Durban. But can Europe now lead the way towards a genuinely sustainable, green, economy? Is this mere idealism or can be realistic about this ? Join our debates in Prague. Click here to download the event Poster

Our event comprises the usual series of lectures, discussions, graduate research presentations, and also a model game simulating the Rio debate. The working language will be English. All costs at the event are covered for Europaeum graduates, but note that all participants must cover their own travel costs. The event is as usual open to all Europaeum graduates, notably from Law, Economics, Politics, History, Geography, International Relations, and other relevant disciplines. Interested participants should respond via e-mail with letter of application, a short CV (max. 2 pages), and a support letter from your supervising professor to the Europaeum Office as soon as possible.

We have also launched a special Environmental Blog linked to this event. Click here to join the debate - even if you can't make it to Prague!

International Conference on European Law
The Europaeum is co-sponsoring an international conference on The Ideas of Prevention in European Law, to take place on May 4th at Charles University, Prague. The aim of the conference is to explore the somewhat ambiguous and multipurpose concept "Prevention in Law", which is increasingly employed both in legal academia and in legal practice. This event is also being supported by the Law Faculty at Charles University, the Academy of Judges of the Czech Republic, and the Czech Bar Association. Participants from across Europe will take part, including Professor Willem van Boom (Rotterdam, Durham), Professor Luboš Tichý (Prague), Professor Eduard Picker (Tübingen), Dr. Donal Nolan (Oxford), Professor Gerhard Wagner (Bonn), and Professor Helmut Koziol (Vienna). Interested participants should contact the Europaeum Office for more information. Click here to download the preliminary Programme.

See also our Europaeum Diary of Forthcoming Events in 2012

Programmes:

MA in European History and Civilization
The first round of applications are being accepted for the Europaeum’s 2012-2013 MA programme in European History and Civilization. Interested students are encouraged to apply by April 1st for priority consideration. Late applications will continue to be accepted until June 1st. This programme offers graduate students a special opportunity to deepen their knowledge of European history and institutions, their philosophical and historical backgrounds and underpinnings, and their social and economic contexts, through the lens of three different busy university worlds. This knowledge plays an increasingly crucial role in practical decision-making and strategic planning, where Europe-wide and global contact and negotiation is required. For further information, see Application details on our website. Click here to view recent matriculation photos from Oxford. For the view of students on the course, see a summary of results plus a selection of anonymous quotes taken from recent evaluation forms, and student views from an article from the Europaeum Review.

We ask professors to support our recruitment efforts and distribute the attached Poster to students and colleagues and on noticeboards.

Brussels Policy-Making Graduate Seminar
The Europaeum is organising the fifth annual Policy-Making inside Europe ? taking place in Brussels from June 18-20th. This three-day programme of talks, discussions, interviews and special visits with top European policy-makers in Brussels. The seminar is again being organised by the Europaeum and our associate member the Institute of Political Studies, Catholic University of Portugal (IEP-UCP), and will focus on how European policy is made in Brussels in a range of fields and disciplines. The programme includes visits to the European Parliament and NATO. Topics will include Is Capitalism at Stake?; Economics and Political Future of Europe; EU harmonisation approaches: Directives, Regulations or secondary law regimes; From Arab Spring to Arab Autumn?; and, The EU and the BRICs.

The Europaeum has up to 10 places available for graduates and postgraduates from member universities. Please send an application letter and CV, with a supporting recommendation from your Supervisor. Letters should be received by the Europaeum Office by May 1st for the first round of selections. All participants will need to cover their own travel and contribute €100 towards (accommodation and the special dinners. Please see the preliminary Programme for more details.

Scholarships and Opportunities:

The Europaeum's new funding policy
For many years the Europaeum has successfully offered small grants, designed to stimulate the growth of new academic links, to facilitate the conception of new joint projects, which can seek further funding from other sources, and to promote academic mobility between institutions. These aim to provide a step approach to realising joint projects and facilitating detailed planning. They are intended both to increase academic opportunities that can be derived from conventional research funding and to open up opportunities for innovative academic developments to be launched and refined over future years. Click here to learn more about our new, simplified procedure.

Europaeum Internships
The value of internships for graduate students has recently been endorsed as a key component for students entering the job market, according to University World News. The Europaeum has proudly offered lively internships to graduate students, doctoral candidates and post-doctoral scholars from Europaeum universities for a number of years. We are committed to providing engaging and fruitful work experience - with opportunities to pursue research studies in Oxford libraries, join lectures etc and travel in the UK. In this way, we seek to extend the mission of the Europaeum to build European leadership, foster diversity and provide opportunities to supplement research and background education.

We offer internships for one to three months, and each intern will be asked to support general office work, work on current events and will be given a relevant research project to work on and help develop. We will help in finding housing and cover the costs, as part of a support package also for food and travel.

Interns for Fall 2012 are now being selected. If you know anyone who might be interested, please send a CV and covering letter, including details of two referees (preferably one academic and one professional) to the the Europaeum office.

Publications & Media

Europe and the Global Green Economy

Green Blog - call for submissions
In the lead up to the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, the new Europaeum Green Sustainability Blog is up and running. We invite scholars to enter the debate by sending us their views on issues surrounding the conference. Europaeum Research Director for the 2012 workshop on Challenges and Opportunities for Europe in building a Global Green Economy, Laurent Lambert from the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, contributed the first piece on Rio+20: reinventing hope? New written pieces as well as short reactions or comments are welcome. Click here to enter the dialogue!!

The Estoril Annual Political Forum
Since 1993, scholars, policy experts, businessmen, opinion leaders, journalists and students met in Lisbon annually for the Estoril Political Forum, an open debate on political science and international relations. Hosted by our associate member, the Institute of Political Studies of the Catholic University of Portugal, these meetings have aimed at establishing a TransAtlantic network of institutions. The Political Forum is associated with the Summer Programs of Boston College, University of Colorado at Boulder, The College of Europe (Natolin/ Warsaw), Jagiellonian University (Krakow), King’s College (London), the Royal Institute of Philosophy (London), and the Europaeum. In 2008 the Europaeum joined this prestigious group by participating annually in the conference through our support of Europaeum students and scholars in attendance. We also organise a special debate as part of the conference. Click here to view a listing of their latest events.

Report of the Month

Report of European Leadership
Last month the Europaeum held a special graduate workshop on Europe and its “Giants” of Leadership - Past, Present and Future? hosted by Leiden University. This highly successful event brought together Europaeum students with top European policy-makers and academics in a three-day workshop to discuss some of the pressing questions facing the Eurozone today. Speakers included Richard Corbett (Member of Cabinet of Herman Van Rompuy); Alain Servantie (advisor to EC President); Abram de Swaan (University of Amsterdam);  Richard Griffiths (Leiden University); Prof. Dr. Alexander Rinnooy Kan (Chair of Social-Economic Council of the Netherlands); and Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (former Minister of Economic Affairs, Netherlands). Click here to download the full report of this exciting event !

Articles from Higher Education conference
Last November, the Europaeum co-supported an international conference on Universities under Attack. Prominent scholars, policy -makers, and educators from across Europe and the US met at King's College, London to discuss the current state of Higher Education in the UK, including Baroness Helena Kennedy, Sir Keith Thomas, and Sir Peter Scott, alongside speakers from Princeton, NYU, and more. Click here to download a list of articles based on contributions from the conference, which appeared in the Oxford Magazine, an official publication of the University of Oxford.

Link-of-the-Month:

How European are you...?
The Guardian Unlimited is now reputed to be among the world's finest media internet sites, full of extensive high quality material, said to be the most widely consulted non-American site in the US. The editors have recently pledged that they do not want to stint on the quality of the hard copy, but as funding problems hit, so inevitably the internet site becomes more of a focus. Moreover it remains free, in the face of more and more of its rivals now charging fees, as a commitment to democracy and equality. Its coverage on Europe is unrivalled and our own colleague Timothy Garton-Ash is a regular contributor.

Recently The Guardian joined five other European newspapers in an examination of the pros and cons of being European. Part of their contribution was an interactive quiz posted on their site asking readers to rate their sympathies to towards "continental ideals". Under the backdrop of perhaps the greatest crisis to strike the Eurozone, and increasing divisions amongst EU member states, this quiz poses a very interesting question indeed! We invite our readers to test how European are you?

Around the Members:

OXFORD: Huge boost for Humanities
The new Mica and Ahmet Ertegun scholarships Programme in the Humanities, will start at once with 15 global awards a year – rising to 35 or more awards in due course. Annually – also open to all Europaeum partner institutions, in fields as diverse as literature, history, music, archaeology, art history, Asian studies, and Middle Eastern studies.

The gift is worth more than £26 million – and will also support a special programme of lectures, seminars, concerts and other activities at a special study centre to be named Ertegun House. The Chancellor of  Oxford, Lord Patten said such support for Humanities postgraduates was ‘vital for the future of great universities like Oxford’ – going against recent trends which have seen Humanities suffer in the face of current universal cuts. Mica Ertegun, the Romanian-born widow of famed Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun who died recently. She lives in New York City and is one of the world’s foremost interior designers. 'My dream is that, one day, Ertegun Scholars will be leaders in every field – as historians and philosophers, as archaeologists and literary scholars, as writers and composers, as statesmen and theologians.'

"At a time when, in the UK, government support for the Humanities is under intense pressure, vision and generosity like this is going to be what saves the field for future generations,” added Oxford Vice-Chancellor, Andrew Hamilton. Click here for more information

PARIS: French universities are boosted
The reform of France’s leading universities – including our partner Paris 1 - seems to be in full flow, just as Mr Sarkozy, a driving influence, may be heading out of power. The so-called Operation Campus is poised to pour billions of Euros into the country’s top 83 universities, stung by their apparent failure to shine in any of the international league tables which nowadays hold such sway. The best for many years has been Paris VI which is usually about 40th in the Shanghai table. The reforms pushed through by Sarkozy who is a first graduate President not to have been at a grande école, and by his advisor from Toulouse, Bernard Belloc. About half the €55 billion to be raised in a new programme - called the grand loan - is being earmarked for French universities. The modernisation reforms also herald a shift for French universities from the traditional emphasis on egalitarianism towards excellence and selection, and clustering of institutions – moves that inevitable arouse opposition, antipathy and scepticism. Much may now depend on how the next President, who might well be Francoise Hollande on current polls, follows through. 

LISBON: IEP-UCP Director honoured by Poland
Professor João Carlos Espada, Director of the Institute for Political Studies of the Catholic University of Portugal (IEP-UCP) - a Europaeum Associate Member - was recently awarded the Bene Merito Distinction by the Republic of Poland. Given by Foreign Minister Radislaw Sikorski, this is the highest civil recognition given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs "to people whose contribution to Poland is exceptional". The ceremony took place on January 31st in Warsaw, at the headquarters of the Community of Democracies.

Professor Espada sits on our Academic Council and has been instrumental in launching many new initiatives with the association including our regular joint graduate seminar on European Policy-making in Brussels and his latest plans are for a new MA in Democracy studies. Click here for more information

Footnote-of-the-Month:

New report on European higher education budgets
In August 2010, the Europaeum produced a detailed report on the budgets of higher education programmes in European countries that host Europaeum partner institutions (and the countries of potential Europaeum partners). Now the Europaeum is releasing a new updated report reflecting the impact of the current economic downturn on these programmes, utilising an even wider range of contemporary source material.

European universities are being affected in many different ways during the current economic crisis – with winners and losers already emerging – and the differences set to be multiplied over the coming years depending on how the winners use their comparative advantage, and how the losers can best mitigate the effects of cuts. However, while reliable statistical data is difficult to pinpoint - and is moreover in flux due to evolving responses and current austerity programmes being passed by governments embroiled in the seemingly insoluble Eurozone crisis - the economic downturn has, on the whole, had a negative short-term impact upon public higher education programmes queried. For a detailed assessment of countries with Europaeum partner universities, please click here to read the full report.

Contact:
The Europaeum
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Endnote:

Ngaire Woods joins the Europaeum
The Europaeum is pleased to welcome Professor Ngaire Woods, inaugural Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and Professor of Global Economic Governance at Oxford University, as a new Trustee of the Europaeum. She is a recognized world authority on international relations, global economic governance, the challenges of globalization, and the role of international institutions. She founded and is the Director of the Global Economic Governance Programme and helped to lead the creation of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. Her recent books include Networks of Influence? Developing Countries in a Networked Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2009), The Politics of Global Regulation (Oxford University Press, 2009)and The Globalizers: the IMF, the World Bank and their Borrowers (Cornell University Press, 2006). For more information about Professor Woods, please see her full biography on our website. Click here for a full list of our current trustees