Upcoming Events
| 18 Dec 2018 : Rage Against the Machine: The emergence of the norm against ‘killer’ robots | 19 Dec 2018 : The Climate COP in Katowice: Implications for International and European Climate Policy |
| 22 Feb 2019 : The Drone Age: Issues, Actors and Perspectives | 27 Feb 2019 : EL-CSID Final Conference |
Research internationalisation is vital for an open and modern university like the VUB. International research co-operation brings impact, visibility, quality, and (of course) funding. But internationalisation can have its dark sides: the problems of human rights violations, industrial espionage, and working with questionable regimes cannot be ignored, particularly when they touch the VUB community directly. During this session on 4 December, the VUB research community discussed the challenges of international collaboration with a panel of policy-makers.
The VUB educational services organize regular Get Inspired! -sessions to VUB staff, where peers present perspectives in educational and research practices to inspire one another. On Tuesday 4 December the session zoomed in on sharing practices on benchmarking of educational programmes; invited to speak in the session was IES professor Harri Kalimo.
IES Academic Director, 
The roundtable ‘Towards Reunification or Confrontation: Assessing recent developments on the Korean Peninsula’ was held on 18 October, from 12.00 to 14.00, at the Press Association of Madrid (Claudio Coello 98, Madrid). It was jointly organised by 
On 15 October, IES researchers Medlir Mema and Mathias Holvoet organized a policy forum addressing the potential implications of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, KSC, in Kosovo. The event was held at the University of Business and Technology, UBT, in Prishtina. Participants of the policy forum echoed a general sentiment that the political nature of the court has hurt its legitimacy before indictments have even begun. 
On 10 October, IES Prof. Dr. Marie Lamensch presented her study on VAT fraud written at the request of the European Parliament’s TAX3 Committee, a special committeeon financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidancethat was set up in March 2018 after Luxleaks, the Panama papers, and other tax related scandals. TAX3 aims to build on the work of its predecessors and investigate new issues, such as digital taxation, national citizenship programmes and VAT fraud.
In cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, and with the support of the Institute for European Studies (IES/VUB), the ALL-YOUTH project calls on youth/young researchers to apply for the MasterClass: “The Future of the Council of Europe”. The session will take place on Monday 4 February 2019 at the Tampere University, Finland.
IES Research Professor 
In recent months, trade defence has become increasingly prominent on the European political agenda. China is resolutely claiming to be a market economy, while US President Trump has set up measures on steel and aluminium. Recent events such as these have only underlined the importance of reforms on the EU’s Trade Defence Instruments (TDIs): they need to become more efficient so as to react quickly to external developments. These external and internal evolutions were amongst the key themes explored in the new high-level expert conference organized by the IES on 26 October, the TDI Yearly 2018.
The Flemish Education Council (VLOR – Vlaamse Onderwijsraad) has recently issued a strategic exploratory report about education for refugees in Flanders. IES postdoctoral researcher Mohammad Salman, who between 2015 and 2017 established and led a programme to bring highly educated refugees to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, contributed to the report by providing specific advice to VLOR based on his extensive experience in this subject matter.
The prevention of violent radicalisation as part of counter-terrorism measures is a top priority of the European Union and national security agendas. In 2015 Belgium introduced promising reforms in countering radicalisation and terrorism that aimed at connecting not only intelligence, security and police services across different policy levels but also the multitude of other stakeholders representing the government and civil society. However, the implementation and further development of the Belgian approach to prevention of radicalisation remain contested in political and public debate. 
The Institute for European Studies (IES) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel is partnering with 9 European institutions in the framework of a new project JP-COOPS funded by the European Commission DG JUST (Justice Action Grant). The main coordinator of the project is the University of Malta. In the next 2.5 years, JP-COOPS aims to reinforce judicial and police cooperation in 26 EU Member States through expanding and strengthening existing training networks. 
Immigrant integration policy-making has long been considered a prerogative of the nation state. Yet, in recent years, elements of these policy areas have been shifted upwards, to the international level (EU and international organizations), downwards, to the sub-state level (regional and local authorities) and outwards (to countries of origin, transit and private actors). This dispersal of policy-making power increases the need for coordination. 
The “Industrial Value Chain: A Bridge towards a Carbon Neutral Europe” report was conducted by the Institute for European Studies (IES-VUB) on the behalf of the EU’s Energy Intensive Industries (EIIs) to the EU Commission’s Strategy for long-term EU greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The report identifies common opportunities and challenges faced by European EIIs in meeting ambitious climate targets, highlights the constructive and solutions-oriented role that the EIIs have been playing, determines a combination of key solutions that will help EIIs to significantly reduce their emissions, as well as addresses the necessary conditions for ensuring that Europe is at the forefront of the energy and industrial transformation. 
The IES LLM (PILC) and Euromaster students made their traditional visit to the Berlaymont building on 7 November. During the meeting, they attended the Press Briefing, given by the Chief spokesperson of the Commission, Margaritis Schinas. The event was lively, with topics ranging from the Italian budget to endocrine disruptors, and BREXIT of course. 
On 6 November a delegation including José Rosinol and Miriam Tey, the President and Vice-President of the Societat Civil Catalana (SCC) visited the IES to have discussions with IES Academic Director Luk Van Langenhove on Catalonia, Spain and Europe. The SCC is a grass-roots initative that embraces the diversity in Catalan society.
On Tuesday 27.11. the European Parliament organized the 10th European Innovation Summit. These summits address hot topics on the EU’s policy agenda, highlighting developments in areas crucial for the Union’s competitiveness and sustainable development. The 10thSummit kicked off with a session “Tackling Microplastics with Sustainable Solutions”. Microplastics refer to the very small pieces of plastics that are either intentionally added to products (such as make-up, cleaners and toothpaste) or detach from larger plastic objects as they wear down (e.g. car tyres, textiles) or fragment over a longer period of time (e.g. plastic bottles). An interdisciplinary group of top scientists elaborated on the current state knowledge on microplastics in the 10th Summit. 
On 19 October the Migration, Diversity and Justice cluster organised the kick-off and internal networking meeting of the new VUB’s Brussels Interdisciplinary Research centre on Migration and Minorities, called BIRMM. The group has been created in January 2018 and joined IMISCOE, the largest network of migration research centres in Europe, as an institutional member in July. BIRMM gathers over 60 VUB researchers working on migration and diversity related topics, mostly in social sciences (sociology, political science, communication science, criminology), history, philosophy and law. BIRMM is coordinated by Prof. Ilke Adam and Prof. Florian Trauner (both IES-VUB) and a board of delegates with one representative per research centre or department. 
IES Academic Director Luk Van Langenhove has been appointed by the Board of Directors of the VUB as Academic Commissioner for International Institutes and Networking. In this new role, he will be responsible for the coordination of the already existing international institutes of the VUB and the VUB participation in international networks.
On 12 September 2018, the IES hosted an international workshop for the Horizon 2020 project “COP21: Results and Implications for Pathways and Policies for Low Emissions European Societies (COP21 RIPPLES)”. The workshop was dedicated to the nextsteps of the project work on international climate governance of which the IES is co-coordinator. IES participants included Sebastian Oberthür, Tomas Wyns and Gauri Khandekar. The workshop gathered consortium colleagues from University College London, the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), Climate Analytics, and Wuppertal Institutefor Climate, Environment, and Energy to discuss future work that will analyse international decarbonization clubs and zoom in on international cooperation on low-carbon technologies and innovation, and on transformative climate finance.IES in the media...
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Tomas Wyns
Nood aan een radicale transitie naar klimaatneutraliteit om opwarming te beperken
10 Dec 2018
In: VRT NWS
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Leo Van Hove
Betalen met een hebbeding
6 Dec 2018
In: Knack.be (Moneytalk)
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Ilke Adam
Pompidou op donderdag 6 december 2018
6 Dec 2018
In: Klara - Blijf verwonderd
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Tomas Wyns
Interview with Tomas Wyns on industrial low-CO2 pathways
1 Dec 2018
In: De Markt (VRT)
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IES is a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the 