IES Doctoral Researcher Klaudia Majcher and Joseph Waldstein launched an open and forward-looking blog – ‘The Afterlife’. This is a platform for people around the world to share their ideas on what they want to change: personally, and in society at large. On this platform, everyone can publish ideas and children can present their art works. 

The idea behind this is to bring people closer together, at least by sharing ideas. The creators of this blog want to take peoples’ minds off the current events, even if only for some minutes – by looking ahead. The blog accepts contributions in English and between approximately 150 and 300 words. The blog posts should present an opportunity for change in your daily life or in the world. Now or in the future – and triggered by Corona. 

For a study commissioned by the Flemish public broadcaster (VRT) and the newspaper De Standaard, Jonas Lefevere (Vesalius College / Institute for European Studies) and Stefaan Walgrave (UAntwerp) conducted an extensive survey of Flemish voters in an effort to track evolutions in political opinion since the 2019 general elections in Belgium, now roughly one year ago. 

Leading experts of Green Public Procurement (GPP) from different countries, organisations and the European Commission met on 16-17 June in a virtual expert workshop organised by HILMI project. The aim of the Workshop was to obtain insights into concrete examples and experiences to further develop the legislation and the measurement of the greening of public procurement. These insights will feed into the policy advice that the HILMI Project, led by Professor Harri Kalimo, will be providing the Finnish government by the end of the year. 

On 18 June 2020, Intersentia published the sixth volume in the ‘European Integration and Democracy’ Series. The book, devoted to ‘Disinformation and Digital Media as a Challenge for Democracy’, was edited by Georgios Terzis, Dariusz Kloza, Elżbieta Kużelewska and Daniel Trottier, with the assistance of Ioulia Konstantinou.

For many years, the Institute for European Studies has built a solid reputation in teaching and learning innovation. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, blended and online learning was part of its educational portfolio. Now, with the establishment of an Office for Teaching and Learning Innovation (OTLI) in the Spring of 2020, the Institute has taken the next step in this essential development towards the ‘education of the future’.