On 4 September 2020, IES PhD Candidate Klaudia Majcher successfully defended her PhD thesis on “Coherence between EU Data Protection and Competition Law in the Digital Market”. Klaudia’s PhD supervisors were Prof. Dr. Harri Kalimo (LLM Programme Director & Research Professor at the IES) and Prof. Ben Smulders (Director and Principal Legal Advisor in the European Commission). The committee was also comprised of VUB Prof. Caroline Buts and VUB Prof. Christopher Kuner, and jury members Dr. Orla Lynskey (Associate Professor of Law at the London School of Economics) and Prof. Peggy Valcke (Professor of Law at KU Leuven Center for IT & IP Law).

In September 2020, Prof. Dr. Kristin Henrard joined the Institute for European Studies as Senior Researcher in its Migration, Diversity and Justice (MDJ) team. Kristin Henrard was also appointed at Vesalius College as a Professor of International Law and Programme Director of its BA in International and European Law. She has more than 160 publications, a substantial part of which pertain to the areas of human rights and minorities, ranging from educational rights, linguistic rights, to the prohibition of (racial) discrimination (the various dimensions of the right to equal treatment), socio-economic and political participation and religious fundamental rights.

Established in 2018, the Brussels Interdisciplinary Research centre on Migration and Minorities (BIRMM) is recognized as the VUB’s Interdisciplinary Centre of Expertise on Migration and Minorities. Over 100 VUB researchers from 11 disciplines participate in it. The coordination is hosted at the IES’ MDJ research cluster, and directed by Prof. Ilke Adam and Prof. Florian Trauner. On 1 September Hannah Vermaut started as the new BIRMM coordinator. She will be assisted by PhD researcher Omar N. Cham. The new coordination team is set to boost BIRMM’s communication and activities.

Matilda Axelson from the IES participated in the organization and execution of a workshop by RENEW-Industry - the Research Network on Industrial Decarbonisation on June 17th 2020. RENEW-Industry co-organized the workshop "How to jump start industry decarbonisation in the wake of the Corona crisis?" together with eceee, Prof. Dr. Stefan Lechtenböhmer and Dr. Marlene Arens.

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’.

At the beginning of our rather exceptional COVID-19 summer, thirty international students participated in the Inter-University Summer School on EU Policy-Making. This was the 17th edition of our long-standing summer programme, but different from previous years, the intensive two-week course was held online from 6-17 July 2020. 

The summer school attracts students and young professionals who wish to broaden their knowledge of the European institutions, European law and the European decision-making process in general. The summer school can be taken as a stand-alone course (5 ECTS) or as part of the Post-Graduate Programme on EU Policy-Making. 

With two new H2020 projects on migration and immigrant integration, one FWO postdoctoral project on immigration policies, and a European research project on the BLM movement, the IES’ Migration, Diversity and Justice (MDJ) research cluster has had a particularly successful year with respect to research grants.