A FLAS Fellow's Semester Abroad in Amman

Audrey Dombro, an agricultural and consumer economics student and 2019-20 FLAS fellow, reflects upon her experience studying in Jordan.

Master of Arts in European Union Studies

The European Union Center at the University of Illinois offers the only Master of Arts in European Union Studies (MAEUS) program in the Western Hemisphere. Learn more here.

Nuclear Energy and Its Environmental, Policy, and Security Implications

On Earth Day 2022, the EU Center organized a symposium on the future of technology, energy, and security in Europe, featuring prominent scholars and policy makers from France, Germany, and the U.S.

Conversations on Europe

Watch the collection of online roundtable discussions on different EU issues sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh.

Accelerating Climate Change Mitigation: Policy Statements on the Road to Sharm-El-Sheikh and Beyond

Bruce Murray, Resident Director of the Illinois Program in Vienna, presents a series of student-written policy statements for accelerating climate change mitigation.

Videos of Previous Lectures

Missed an EUC-hosted lecture? Our blog's video tag has archived previous EUC-sponsored lectures.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Registration is Open: EU Studies Regional Faculty Working Conference October 30-31, 2015



The European Union Center is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 2016 EU Studies Conference! Proposals for research presentations on any topic relevant to EU studies from scholars, college instructors, and graduate students are welcome. Colleagues with only a nascent academic interest in the EU are also invited to join us without being obliged to present any materials.

We are also very excited to announce that we will kick-off this annual conference with a Roundtable on “Greece and the Future of the European Union," followed by conference welcome dinner.



Information about the conference as follows:

"Researching and Teaching the EU: Best Practices and Current Trends in EU Scholarship" 

A Working Conference for Regional College Faculty


October 30-31, 2015

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

featuring 

Roundtable Discussion: "Greece and the Future of the European Union" 

Speakers:
Stefanos Katsikas, Director of Modern Greek Studies, Linguistics, University of Illinois
Benjamin Lough, Social Work, University of Illinois
Kolja Raube, Visiting Scholar, European Union Center, University of Illinois; Centre for European Studies, Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU-Leuven
Marina Terkourafi, Linguistics, University of Illinois
Moderator: Anna Westerstahl Stenport, Director of the European Union Center, Germanic Languages
and Literatures, University of Illinois

Conference web page: http://euc.illinois.edu/facultyworkshop2016/index.html


Online registrationhttps://illinois.edu/fb/sec/3157594



Registration deadline: Friday, September 25, 2015. Space is limited; register early! 



Registration fee: Participants who are not presenting are required to pay a $50 registration fee. This fee will be waived for accepted speakers and University of Illinois faculty and graduate students.

A $100 travel reimbursement grant and one night of free lodging will be available to all out-of-town participants.



 For further details, please visit the conference webpage.



 Questions? Contact: eucenter@illinois.edu or 217-265-7515



We look forward to your participation.



Originally written by Dr. Anna Westerstahl Stenport, Director of the European Union Center, August 31 2015

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Friday, August 14, 2015

EU Awards Two Prestigious Grants to the EU Center at the University of Illinois

PRESS RELEASE

Contact:               Dr. Sebnem Ozkan                          217 244 0570                                       asozkan@illinois.edu

European Union Awards Two Prestigious Research, Teaching and Outreach Grants to the European Union Center at the University of Illinois

Champaign, IL, August 12, 2015 – The European Union Center (EUC) at the University of Illinois (UI) has been awarded its third Getting to Know Europe grant and for the first time, the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence grant. These two programs funded by the European Union (EU) promote greater study and understanding of the EU and transatlantic relations in the US. The EUC will use the funds (180,000 euro, approximately $200,000) to continue to serve as the campus focal point for outreach, research, and teaching related to the EU. The EUC will also reach local, regional, and national communities through strategic outreach activities that cover the economic crisis in Greece, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment (TTIP) agreement currently being negotiated between the EU and US, and other pressing issues.

The new Getting to Know Europe grant, funded by the EU Delegation to the US for 2015-2017, will lead to the expansion of flagship public engagement programs organized by the EUC. The annual EU Day, which brings an ambassador to campus from Washington D.C. who represents the EU member state currently holding the rotating EU presidency, will now reach communities in Chicago and Peoria with “EU Day on the Road.” Other EUC public engagement activities will include the “Transatlantic Educators Dialogue,” an innovative on-line program and credit-eligible course for K-12 educators as well pre-service teachers; “Euro Challenge” competition for Illinois high school students (in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago), and a “Transatlantic Relations Study Tour to Washington DC” for UI graduate and undergraduate students. Additionally, a new annual TTIP roundtable panel with discussants from the European Chicago consular corps will debate and investigate the benefits of a free trade agreement between the EU and the US.

The EUC previously secured two Getting to Know Europe grants from the EU. The first project, “Illinois and the EU: From Coal to Corn,” administered in 2008-2009, explored the multi-faceted economic, social, cultural, and environmental connections between the state of Illinois and the EU through study tours, conferences, and digital media. Then, in 2011-2012, the second project, “Illinois and the EU: Seeking Sustainable and Secure Connections in Food, Energy and Governance” continued to examine the relationship between Illinois and the EU through the lens of both government and private-sector sustainability initiatives in the agricultural and energy industries.

The EU has also designated the EUC as a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence for 2015-2018 for its project “Strengthening Transatlantic Trust.” This prestigious designation acknowledges excellence in the EUC’s outreach, teaching, and research programs. In particular, the grant will strengthen transatlantic trust by building on UI expertise and international partnerships in the fields of agriculture and food trade, economic practices and capital flows, and migration and movement of people. Public lectures and conferences invite those around the Midwest to benefit from the research produced by participating faculty in the US and Europe. Besides public events and refereed journal publications, an online course on EU politics will be developed and a book project, Language and Minorities in Europe: An Introduction, will be completed. The EUC’s annual EU Studies Regional Faculty Working Conference will continue to gather community college and university instructors from around the Midwest to share their current research and best practices for researching and teaching the EU.

Prior to becoming a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, the EUC was the only American institution to have simultaneously coordinated two successful Jean Monnet Modules. The first Module, “Europe and the Mediterranean: Transnational Spaces and Integration,” awarded in 2011 and completed in 2014, resulted in a new, team-taught course that presented the cultural, economic, and migratory networks linking Europe and the Mediterranean region as interdependent spaces. The course continues to be taught as a permanent offering at the university. The second Module, “Eastern Europe and European Integration,” awarded in 2013 and ongoing until 2016, also features a new, team-taught course that links Western and Eastern Europe as interdependent, multicultural, and multinational spaces historically connected through cultural, political, and migratory networks. Besides the course offerings, the Jean Monnet Modules reach other EUC stakeholders through conferences, lectures, publications, radio/TV broadcasts, webcasts, and workshops.

The University of Illinois European Union Center (EUC) was established in 1998 with support from the European Commission, as one of the ten original EU Centers in the United States. In 2003, the US Department of Education designated the EUC as a Title VI National Resource Center. In 2011, the European Union recognized the EUC as a European Union Center of Excellence.

For more information please visit the EUC website at euc.illinois.edu

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015

EUC Affiliated Faculty Xinyuan Dai Named a Linowes Faculty Fellow

The Cline Center for Democracy is pleased to announce the 2015-2016 David F. Linowes Faculty Fellows. Each of these exceptional scholars is strongly committed to research and teaching in areas of core interest to the Cline Center. The Linowes Fellowship recognizes their achievements and supports efforts to utilize and improve our data and software.
  • Prof. Dov Cohen (Psychology) focuses on the interaction between cultural logics, people and contexts, with an emphasis on comparing ‘face, dignity, and honor’-focused cultures. During his time as a Linowes Fellow, he plans to expand and enhance the Cline Center’s Composition of Religious and Ethnic Groups (CREG) database in order to improve our understanding of ethno-religious demography, lived socio-cultural traditions and their relationship to violent conflict.
  • Prof. Xinyuan Dai (Political Science) is a scholar of international institutions and cooperation, including trade, environmental protection and human rights regimes. As a Linowes Fellow, she plans to work with the Cline Center’s Legal Infrastructures data to understand how countries’ domestic institutions affect their ability and willingness to deepen their commitments to cooperative international agreements.
  • Prof. Dan Roth (Computer Science and Beckman Institute) works on machine learning and inference methods that enable natural language understanding. As a Linowes Fellow, he aims to expand the long-term partnership between the Cline Center and the Cognitive Computation Group. He plans to pursue novel research on machine-learning based tools for transforming the raw, natural language of news text into structured data about civil unrest and political violence. This effort will build on and enhance the capabilities of the Cline Center’s Social, Political and Economic Event Database (SPEED) and the Center-supported Phoenix Open Event Dataset.

These projects reflect the values, goals and standards set by David F. Linowes during his long and distinguished service to the University of Illinois and the American people. A University of Illinois alumnus, he served as a US Army Officer during WWII, as the Boeschenstein Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy at Illinois, and was a distinguished public servant. He worked tirelessly to enhance the welfare of his fellow citizens and countless others overseas by increasing the accountability and efficiency of businesses and governance.

Professor Linowes with President Reagan [Image Source]
Generous gifts from Professor Linowes and his family enable the Cline Center to support these Faculty Fellows, as well as the annual Linowes Lecture on Public Policy. These programs demonstrate Professor Linowes’ and the Cline Center’s commitment to applying cutting-edge academic knowledge to the most challenging policy issues and political problems facing democratic governance today.
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