Upcoming Events
| 21 Nov 2018 : The Geopolitics of Decarbonisation: Expert workshop - invitation only | 27 Nov 2018 : Differentiated integration in JHA |
| 28 Nov 2018 : IES - UPV lecture series | 04 Dec 2018 : Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France |
| 05 Dec 2018 : European projects on societal security and extremism: exchanging ideas and practices | 05 Dec 2018 : Anti-discrimination policy and anti-racist activism in polarized times |
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. 
The public defence of the PhD in Political Science by Serena D’Agostino will take place on Thursday 6 September 2018 at 16:00 on the Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, U-residence, Groene Zaal.
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 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.
From 27 – 31 August the Institute for European Studies was represented by doctoral researcher Maaike Verbruggen at the Second Session of the Group of Governmental Experts of the High Contracting Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons on Lethal Autonomous Weapons System at the United Nations in Geneva.Maaike Verbruggen attended the meeting in the context of her 
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. 
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.
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. 
On 27 June 2018, we published our latest report on the role of international institutions and organisations on the decarbonization of key emission sectors produced for the Horizon 2020 project “COP21: Results and Implications for Pathways and Policies for Low Emissions European Societies (COP21 RIPPLES)”. The report, authored by IES experts Prof. Sebastian Oberthür, Tomas Wyns and Gauri Khandekar, provides a basis for identifying the challenges, barriers and opportunities that international climate governance faces from a sectoral system perspective, and thereby enables a more targeted approach to addressing the international decarbonisation challenge.
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 September 2018, Serena D’Agostino defended her PhD thesis entitled “Romani Women in European Politics. Exploring Multi-Layered Political Spaces for Intersectional Policies and Mobilizations”. Her promoters were Prof. Dr. Ilke Adam and Prof. Dr. Karen Celis. The Institute for European Studies would like to congratulate Dr Serena D’Agostino for successfully defending her PhD thesis.
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.
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.
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.
On 5 September 2018, KF-VUB Korea Chair Senior Researcher Tongfi Kim presented "Fundamental strategic problems in nuclear disarmament of North Korea: How Europe can help ameliorate them" at the Seventh Consultative Meeting of the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium. Dr. Kim discussed strategic problems of North Korea’s nuclear disarmament and why we have not seen much progress after the US-DPRK summit in June this year. 
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.
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 IES is proud to announce the launch of a new report by researchers IES in the media...
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Alison Woodward
Wie won de Midterms?
7 Nov 2018
In: De Afspraak (Canvas)
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Ramon Pacheco Pardo
KCN-eh? October's other North Korea Developments
6 Nov 2018
In: Patreon
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Ramon Pacheco Pardo
Prospects for Indonesia, South Korea economic ties
3 Nov 2018
In: The Jakarta Post
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Richard Lewis
Metropolis 2018: Richard Lewis et Sandra Pratt, la migration en Europe
30 Oct 2018
In: SBS Sydney
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IES is a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the 