The IES is proud to announce the launch of a new report by researchers Matilda Axelson (lead author), Isobel Robson, Gauri Khandekar and Tomas Wyns (Project coordinator): 'Breaking Through – Industrial Low-CO2 Technologies on the Horizon’. This report assesses the latest state of play of 70 low-CO2 process technologies currently under development in Europe for the Iron and Steel, Chemicals, Cement and Concrete, Pulp and Paper, and Ceramics industries. It provides a snapshot of the current situation by assessing current industrial process innovations based on their CO2-emission reduction potential, energy demand, costs and technological readiness. 

On Friday 29 September the IES celebrated its 15th anniversary. Our institute started off as an initiative by our former President Prof. Dr. Em. Bart De Schutter with a handful of people involved. Today, we are an established player in the area of European studies, involved in dozens of prestigious research projects and with 121 people directly associated. 

Are you interested in Korean Peninsula security affairs? Do you want to share your views with an audience including policy-makers, researchers, journalists and other experts on Asian affairs? Do you want to win €500 and the possibility of spending a two-month paid internship in Brussels? Are you an Undergraduate student based at a European university? Then do join the KF-VUB Korea Chair Pan-European Korean Peninsula Security Writing Contest!

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 doctoral research on Military Innovation in Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence.

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.

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. 

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. 

Authors: Tomas Wyns, Gauri Khandekar, Isobel Robson