The 2020 Schuman Challenge, One Year Later

By Lucas Henry, EUC Academic Programs Coordinator

November 2021

The University of Illinois Schuman Challenge team (Hannah Buzil, Angitha Bright, and Alicja Szczepkowska), with judges Ian Brzezinski, Peter Fatelnig, and Mercedes Garcia Perez.
Photo courtesy of the European Union Center.

Last fall, the University of Illinois sent its first student team to compete in the Schuman Challenge, a transatlantic foreign policy competition hosted by the Delegation of the European Union to the United States in Washington, DC.  The Schuman Challenge, named after EU founding father Robert Schuman, is quite new--its first edition was held in 2017 and featured only a small group of participating universities.  Previous winners include American University (2017), West Virginia University (2018) and William & Mary (2019).  While the event is typically co-hosted in Washington DC by the EU Delegation and George Washington University, the fourth edition was held virtually on October 28-30, 2020 and featured 29 universities from 16 states, making it the largest edition to date.

In the Schuman Challenge, teams are asked to draw up a policy proposal based on a common question asked by the EU delegation.  For the 2020 competition, the question was: "How should the EU and the US respond to China's alternative models of governance? Address a specific example or case study."  After submitting a short position paper to the Delegation outlining the proposal's terms and rationale, teams are asked to present their policy proposal to a panel of judges with expertise in the transatlantic relationship between the United States and the European Union.  The teams are then judged on their written proposal's detail, salience, and practicality; on their oral presentation's development of the proposal and its clarity; and the team's performances during the Q&A session with the panel of experts.  Following the first round of presentations, three teams are chosen to advance to the final round, where the finalists re-present their proposals to a new set of judges, and an overall winner is chosen.

The University of Illinois's Schuman Challenge team consisted of three undergraduates from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: Angitha Bright, a junior majoring in Philosophy and Political Science; Hannah Buzil, a senior majoring in Political Science and Statistics; and Alicja Szczepkowska, a senior majoring in Global Studies and Sociology who has since continued into the MA in EU Studies through the European Union Center.  The team was coached by Professor Kostas Kourtikakis (Political Science), with support from the EU Center's Academic Programs Coordinator Lucas Henry.  After forming in early September, the team spent six weeks studying the transatlantic relationship and EU-US-China relations to craft their proposal and prepare their presentation.  The team spent considerable time examining China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and various approaches that the EU and the United States have taken in interaction with China during the 21st Century.

The team concluded that current European and American strategies were somewhat incompatible, and ultimately decided to craft a policy proposal that would leverage the EU's market power, which is perhaps its greatest asset in foreign affairs.  It proposed that the EU should directly engage China in the form of a strategic partnership through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to increase the EU's influence in the region, which in turn would facilitate its promotion of European norms on democracy and human rights.  The team also hoped that this action by the EU would encourage the US to soften its recent hardline approach to relations with China.

The judges in the opening round of the Schuman Challenge were quite impressed with the Illinois team's attention to detail in both the proposal and presentation, and the team performed quite well in the Q&A session.  However, the judges felt the proposal did not privilege the transatlantic relationship, and thus did not send the team to the finals.  On Friday afternoon, teams from Berkeley, Michigan, and George Washington competed in the final round; George Washington, who proposed a new global joint infrastructure clearinghouse between the US and the EU that was open to China as a participant, was declared the winner.

Fast-forward eleven months.  In mid-September 2021, Australia agreed to purchase nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and the United Kindgom, which scuppered a previous $65-billion contract between France and Australia.  The primary purpose of the AUKUS agreement, as it is popularly known, furthers the recent hardline American approach by countering China's growing naval presence in the Pacific, and specifically shows that the US does not necessarily see Europe as a partner in the region.  It also shows the foresight of the University of Illinois Schuman Challenge team, who understood that the European Union cannot necessarily count on the support of the United States when it comes to East Asian relations.