Politics & Public Policy

A couple of pieces this week have brought me to consider how difficult the non-sceptic side of the EU debate has become in theUK. My rather awkward choice of ‘non-sceptic’ is used advisedly, following Jon Worth’s line about the pointlessness of being ‘pro-European’. As I have discussed before, there is no one euroscepticism, but rather […]

In an earlier post, Thomas Koenig wrote about the upcoming Lithuanian EU Presidency conference ‘Horizons for Social Sciences and Humanities’, which reacts to the so-called ‘integrative approach’ the European Commission proposed in the preparation of the ‘Horizon 2020’ research funding programme; more precisely the third pillar known as the ‘societal challenges’. Seven such challenges have […]

Next week, September 23-24, the Lithuanian EU Presidency will host a conference on “Horizons on Social Sciences and Humanities” in Vilnius. While it is not the first gathering to discuss the role of Social Sciences and Humanities in Europe, this conference is certainly unique, for it combines several features. For the first time, a consultation […]

Academics studying the EU should be the real eurosceptics. Not only can we translate the greek word skepsis as "enquiry”, modern science owes much to philosophical and methodological scepticism. However, it seems that academics interested in the EU have struggled to come to grips with a the phenomenon of political euroscepticism which appears to be quite a different thing compared the philosophical notions of skepticism.

An enduring tension in systemic integration in public sector governance has featured the relations between state and its agencies and organizations devoted to specific tasks. Thus periods of greater leeway to sub-systemic organizational autonomy have intertwined with periods of contraction and stronger central control, and vice versa. A recent example is the wave of so-called […]

Both the Daily Mail and Daily Express stated that EU law has to be changed so that foreign doctors can have their command of English checked.  They claimed such checks are currently “banned” under EU law.   The Mail reported, “Patients lives are being put at risk by doctors whose English language skills have never been tested because it is […]

If you’re a UK citizen confused about the value of EU membership, due to the ‘untruths’ coming from UKIP and the national press, then just follow the evidence, writes Jon Danzig.         It’s probably best not to be too entrenched about most subjects. That’s a lesson you learn as you get older.   […]

Returning from UACES, and eager not to get lost in the big pile of emails that awaits me, I spent some time thinking about how to integrate all of the things that I’d been hearing over the past few days. While my focus had been mainly on euroscepticism, I also listened to sessions on the […]

At the end of the second millennium, the European Union (EU) boldly proclaimed that within a decade it aimed to become the ‘most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’. This ambition and its renewal through the Europe 2020 Strategy have seemingly been forgotten and, indeed, neglected amidst the Crisis. To what extent has […]

For the last 30 years European research landscape has been significantly shaped by the EU Framework Programme. At the same time, informal collaboration among researchers outside externally funded projects remains important for creativity and vitality of European research. Increased role of projects: opportunities and threats Since the early professionalisation of the scientific community in the […]