In 2018, the Institute for European Studies was honoured to bring four PhDs to fruition: Ferran Davesa (PhD Political Science), Mathias Holvoet (PhD in Law), Carlos Soria Rodrigues (PhD in Law) and Serena D’Agostino (PhD Political Science). The IES organised 57 events and produced 211 publications. Among  these events were the biannual EUIA conference, which was a record-breaking edition, and the large-scale Transatlantic EuroSim (EU simulation) conference hosted by the IES.
The Institute continued to expand and now counts 104 people or 55.4 full-time equivalents. In 2018, IES scholars took part in a total of 131 media appearances. Moreover, the Institute was particularly successful in obtaining externally funded projects. At the end of the year, no less than 38 external projects were conducted by IES scholars, whereas an additional 15 projects were funded through our own budget.

After her hearing at the European Parliament in December 2018, Trisha Meyer (Assistant Professor at Vesalius College and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for European Studies) returned to Strasbourg to present the results of her study on the use of artificial intelligence to combat disinformation online at the Council of Europe on 28 February 2019. The study was commissioned by the European Parliament’s Panel on the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) and was co-authored with Prof. Marsden (Professor of Internet Law at the University of Sussex). The study focuses on the consequences of automated content moderation for freedom of expression and media pluralism and warns against use of artificial intelligence without human intervention and appeal mechanisms as a solution to disinformation. Prof. Meyer is grateful for the opportunity to exchange views on information disorder and media (dis)trust at the Council of Europe.

Korea-Foundation-VUB Korea Chair Dr. Ramon Pacheco Pardo has been invited to teach a course on 'EU and Asia' as part of Seoul National University's International Summer Institute. SNU is Korea's top university. As South Korea's first national university, Seoul National University has a tradition of standing up for democracy and peace on the Korean peninsula. Graduates have long served as public servants in key positions of the Korean government. In teaching, research, and public service, Seoul National University continues to set the standard of excellence. If you would like to find out more about the courses of the Seoul National University International Summer Institute, please visit this website.

A new IES report to which our researchers Tomas Wyns, Gauri Khandekar and Matilda Axelson contributed, builds upon the growing momentum for an EU industrial transition to net-zero amongst policy makers and even industry, and sketches the blueprint of an industrial strategy towards climate neutrality. The report is unique in the sense that its industrial strategy proposal transcends the novelty of individual instruments towards a more integrated structure that scrutinizes a broad set of policy instruments and provides ideas for making the whole policy set as tangible as possible.

The Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) of the European Parliament has recently released a study on regulating disinformation with artificial intelligence. IES postdoctoral researcher Trisha Meyer has co-authored this study, along with Chris Marsden (University of Sussex). The study has a particular focus on the implications of use of AI on freedom of expression and media pluralism. It examines the trade-offs in using automated technology to limit the spread of disinformation online and presents options (from self-regulatory to legislative).

Jamal Shahin, who works with colleagues Trisha Meyer and Olof Soebech on the PARENT project, was invited to speak on a plenary panel session at the JPI Urban Europe Policy Conference on 12 February in Brussels. Jamal was invited to talk about experiences in working on the project, and how the project experiences feed into future of the JPI Urban Europe programme. The conference itself has been summarised here.

Copyright: Michael Chia, www.michaelchia.eu, 2019

The European Union is a frontrunner on two major societal developments: digitalization and the circular economy. The EU has therefore particular prominence and interest in the policy domain where these two trends meet: in the creation of a digital circular economy. At the IES, professor Harri Kalimo, together with researcher Lea Mateo (who is pursuing a joint PhD with the University of Eastern Finland) are exploring this exciting topic in their research. 

IES postdoctoral researcher Ferran Davesa was invited to act as a facilitator of the MasterClass ‘The Future of the Council of Europe’, an event organised by the ALL-YOUTH project at the Tampere University (Finland) on 4 February 2019. It consisted of two main parts: 1) a series of expert and academic lectures on the CoE, the European Court of Human Rights and the international system for the protection of human rights; and 2) a hands-on workshop in which the youth participants elaborated a list of Recommendations for the Finnish Presidency of the Council of Europe (21 November 2018 to 17 May 2019). 

The Institute for European Studies has two new vacancies for full-time Doctoral Researchers. The first PhD call is in the field of environment and sustainable development, and the other one is in the field of migration and diversity. Prospective PhD candidates are hereby invited to submit their application and project proposal by 15 May 2019. For both vacancies the expected starting date is 1 October, or as soon as possible thereafter. For more information, visit our jobs page. 

The ‘European Union in International Affairs’ (EUIA) conference provides a major forum for academics and policy-makers to debate the role of the EU in the turbulent realm of international affairs. The sixth edition of this event will take place from 27 to 29 May 2020 and focus on the theme ‘Assessing the EU’s Capacity to Act’.

Keep an eye on www.euia.eu for further updates. The Call for Papers and Panels will be launched next September.

No less than three publications were recently published by our researcher Elie Perot. In the article published in the policy journal Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Elie argues that the obscuring of the distinction between war and peace is not a distinctive feature of contemporary times, nor simply a conceptual conundrum. Rather, it is a systemic and strategic response to the persistent fear of a general war at the international level, a factor of crucial importance in the perspective of the growing antagonism characterizing US-China relations.

After successfully hosting the 31st edition of EuroSim – a Model European Union that brings together around 200 students from the US and the EU to simulate the legislative process of the European Union – the IES participated with its own delegation of students in the US edition that was hosted at the St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York between 28 – 31 March. Selected across its LLM, EuroMaster, and Postgraduate Certificate programmes, the Institute’s delegation negotiated together with peers from 20 different universities and colleges the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).