Research and Development in European Union Politics

Author(s):  
Alberto Quadrio Curzio ◽  
Alberto Silvani

The European Union (EU) research policy was founded on the idea of cooperation among countries after the end of World War II, and consequently it has been influenced in increments. But it also has advantages because of its specificity. So the EU becomes not just the simple sum of all the member states’ contributions but something different, based on a variety of scales and actors, including a vision (and sometimes a mission). This is the reason why the research policy should be examined both in its evolution as such and in light of the relevant steps considered crucial for the development. At least three possible approaches are feasible: (a) a sort of vertical reading in historical development; (b) the attention paid to the terminologies used or to the glossary; (c) the focus on keywords and their role in accompanying the choices, in particular the origin and the development of the European Research Area (ERA). The transition from the current Framework Programme Horizon 2020 (H2020) to the new one planned starting from 2021 (Horizon Europe) is a way to integrate the three approaches by analysing the contents in terms of novelties and continuity. The focus on the evolution of the relevance of ERA can be also considered as a way to illuminate the challenges facing European research policy. In fact, the demand for greater collaboration in European research is determined by the increased international competition and the growing role, as a driver, of innovation in society and the economy. This must be reflected in the choices the new Framework Programme must make.

CADMO ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Emma Nardi

- AEA-Europe was founded in 2000 with the main goals of improving communication among European institutions interested in educational and occupational assessment, and providing a framework within which co-operative research, development implementation and evaluation of projects involving educational assessment could be undertaken. After 10 years of successful activity, the Association has built a position that could allow it to become the protagonist of the EU's policy in the field of assessment, becoming a reference point for all its members, and playing a crucial role as an applicant for projects funded by the European Union. This article, dealing with research policy, describes the activity carried out by the Association since 2000, presents the EU's policy in research funding specifically applied to Tempus projects, and discusses how the Association could contribute to evaluation and accountability in the European Higher Education and Research Area.


Federalism-E ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  
Eric Servais

The European Union (EU), a contested “European” political construct, is contemporarily positioned at a critical juncture that presents three options that may determine its status as a supranational actor: stagnation, dissolution, or deeper and wider integration. The myriad pressures antagonizing the European Union and its structural foundations parallel those that the project sought to address following World War II. The unprecedented level of devastation caused by advanced military technologies and totalitarian ideologies in the war provided the impetus for increased cooperation amongst independent nation-states. Institutional cooperation encourages the deconstruction of destructive socio-political forces including racism, nationalism, and primordial cultural identities. These essentialist forces emerge in the absence of effective governance and encourage internal and external hostilities. The EU is intended to provide a structural framework for liberal-democratic countries to make collective decisions to increase economic prosperity, freedom, security, and justice [...]


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Higgins

Abstract This article examines the discourses of masculinity to pervade debates on the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. The article outlines an association between excessive forms of masculinity and popular cultural discourses around conflict and war, constructing and reproducing a popular lexicon on the British experience of World War II in ways that are widely interpreted as symptomatic of a coarsening of political discussion. However, the article also emphasises the performative quality of these masculine discourses in line with the personalisation of politics, and stresses the scope for contestation and ridicule. The article thereby identifies the articulation of a performative masculinity with a nation-based politics of the right. While disputable and occasionally subject to derision, this produces a gendered component in any antagonistic turn in contemporary political culture.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-23
Author(s):  
K. Szekeres

Roof top extensions for multifamily houses in SlovakiaIn the countries of the European Union with the exception of Malta, approximately 100.1 million multifamily dwelling units are situated. These dwellings count for an average of 47.5% of the total housing stock in European Union countries. At present in Slovakia and also other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, there are vast housing areas which were built after World War II. Slovakia's multifamily housing stock was privatized during the 1990s. Considering that the economy of Slovakia is not capable of replacing the existing housing fund, which is located in the multifamily houses that were built after World War II, it is necessary to place an increased emphasis on the renovation of this housing fund. The expenditures for the refurbishment of multifamily housing stock in recent decades, when compared with the demand, have been at a very low level. The main problems involving the current multifamily housing stock in Slovakia are: the need for modernization, the low level of energy efficiency, and the insufficient level of building maintenance. One of the options for creating sufficient sources for the renovation of apartment buildings is to utilize the roofs of apartment buildings as construction areas for building additional floors (over - roofing). The means acquired from the sale of the new floors after deducting the costs can be used for renovation. It is a matter of a one-time possibility, which is limited by many factors that depend on the localization and constructive technical solutions for apartment buildings.This article is an outcome of the SuReFit "Sustainable Roof Extension Retrofit for High-Rise Social Housing in Europe" international research project.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135050682093549
Author(s):  
Bianka Vida

Scholarship on gender mainstreaming (GM) in the European Union (EU) consistently highlights the disappointing implementation of gender mainstreaming. This article contributes to that discussion through the analysis of the first policy frame on gender equality in the work programmes of the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Development, Horizon 2020, from 2014 until 2016. This article analyses how GM as a transformative strategy is contextualised by advisory group experts, and what is being achieved within Horizon 2020 work programmes. In opposition to the Commission’s rhetorical commitment to GM, this article demonstrates that Horizon 2020 work programmes exemplify a failure of implementing GM, further depoliticising gender equality in the Commission’s neoliberal context.


Author(s):  
Michael J. Bazyler ◽  
Kathryn Lee Boyd ◽  
Kristen L. Nelson ◽  
Rajika L. Shah

World War II began with the German invasion of Poland, and led to the murder of approximately 90 percent of the Jewish population in Poland. Immediately after the war, Poland passed laws reversing property confiscations carried out by the German occupiers. Former Jewish owners, however, often faced threats when they tried to retake their pre-war properties from non-Jewish possessors. Soon thereafter, Communist Poland nationalized private property of all Poles. Reprivatization of nationalized and confiscated property began taking place after 1989, although Poland is the only country in the European Union that has yet to enact comprehensive legislation addressing restitution or compensation of stolen private property. Poland endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009 and initially approved the Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010, but later withdrew its support.


Focaal ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 (59) ◽  
pp. 33-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Melchior ◽  
Oane Visser

This article analyzes the politics of memory around the Estonian government’s decision to relocate Tallinn’s World War II memorial of a Soviet soldier. It shows why and how legitimizing national discourses resonated with and influenced personal narratives among ordinary Estonians. It also discusses discourses of Estonians who took a more critical stance on the relocation. The article argues that the dominant discourse in Estonia has been characterized by a notion of suffering and a search for recognition from the West, while turning its back to the East (Estonian Russians and Russia). In a similar vein, the relocation aimed at a breakaway from the Soviet past and its discourse, while at the same time reinforcing its perceived continuity. As such, the Estonian case gives insight into processes of remembering, amnesia, and the quest for recognition at the new border of the European Union, within a context of highly contentious minority politics.


2009 ◽  
pp. 73-79
Author(s):  
József Mikita

strong educational and scientific knowledge basie is one of Europe's traditional key assets that has made it possible for our continent to become world class in several research fields. Despite these great achievements, the position of the European research and technological development (RTD) potential is currently being challenged by a rapidly changing global competition, including the two main rivals, the US and Japan. The European Union (EU) is behind these countries as regards research and innovation output. Moreover, European research is faced with theimplications of globalisation of markets and industries, digitalisation and new technologies, as well as a need to address societal issues such as an ageing population or climate change.At the same time, the European Union (EU) is facing the uneven distribution of RTD capacities and excellence within its own borders, especially the EU12 countries are lagging behind in thisrespect.In order to meet this twofold challenge the EU has to step up its efforts for the creation of a legitimate "European Research Area" that will make the EU more competitive on the international scene, and also encourage the less developed EU member states to invest more and better into research and innovation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 171-185
Author(s):  
Искра [Iskra] Баева [Baeva]

Perceptions of Europe in modern Bulgaria – from the Ottoman Empire to the European Union The article demonstrates the construction of the notion of Europe during the modernization of Bulgarian society during the historical period from the Bulgarian Renaissance (1762) until the end of 20th century. The perception of Europe in Bulgaria depends mostly on the almost five‑century‑long Ottoman rule of Bulgarian lands which detached Bulgaria from the European civilization. Therefore, for the Bulgarians Europe represents the foreign, more developed part of the world, towards which they strive. Bulgaria only begins to rees­tablish its place in Europe with the restoration of the Bulgarian state following its Liberation (1878), achieved thanks to the Russian‑Turkish war of 1877–1878. The new Bulgarian state is based on a European template, but in the first decades following its independence, it faces European contradictions. The idea of Europe as a unitary whole is put in doubt as Bulgaria is the battleground where the interests of the Russian liberator and the Western European countries collide.The participation of Bulgaria in the two world wars on the side of the Central Powers and the Tripartite Pact leads to defeats and further detachment from Western Europe. Following World War II, Bulgaria falls into the Soviet sphere of influence, and Europe (understood as Western Europe) is associated with the image of the enemy for nearly half a century. This only changes with the end of the Cold War, when the conception of Europe is equated with the de­sired membership in the European Union, achieved on 1 January 2007. Bułgarskie wyobrażenia Europy w dobie nowożytnej – od Imperium Osmańskiego do Unii Europejskiej Artykuł ukazuje powstawanie obrazu Europy w społeczeństwie bułgarskim w okresie modernizacji trwającej od początku odrodzenia narodowego (1762) do końca XX wieku. Na jego kształcie wyraźne piętno odcisnęło trwające pięć wieków panowanie osmańskie, które oddzieliło Bułgarię od cywilizacji europejskiej; dlatego dla Bułgarów Europa stanowi ze­wnętrzną, bardziej rozwiniętą część świata, do której aspirują. O początkach europejskiej identyfikacji Bułgarów można więc mówić dopiero po utworzeniu państwa bułgarskiego, co nastąpiło po wyzwoleniu w 1878 roku, w wyniku wojny rosyjsko‑tureckiej 1877–1878. Nowe państwo bułgarskie powstawało zgodnie z wzorcami europejskimi, ale już w pierwszych de­kadach niezależności Bułgarzy doświadczyli Europy w kategoriach antynomii. Idea Europy jako całości została zakwestionowana, ponieważ w Bułgarii starły się z jednej strony interesy wyzwolicielskiej Rosji, a z drugiej państw zachodnioeuropejskich.Udział Bułgarii w wojnach światowych po stronie państw centralnych i państw Osi do­prowadził ją do upadku i ostatecznego odcięcia od Europy Zachodniej. Po II wojnie świato­wej Bułgaria znalazła się w sferze wpływów Związku Radzieckiego, przez niemal pół wieku Europa (rozumiana tu jako Europa Zachodnia) stanowiła synonim wroga. Ta sytuacja uległa zmianie dopiero po zakończeniu zimnej wojny, kiedy dla Bułgarii pojęcie „Europa” stało się tożsame z pożądanym członkostwem w Unii Europejskiej, co nastąpiło 1 stycznia 2007 roku.


2007 ◽  
pp. 182-187
Author(s):  
József Mikita ◽  
János Nagy

Research, development and innovation (R+D) are of great importance nowadays as regards the competetiveness and economic growth of any given country. In the European Union the Lisbon Strategy considers R+D as a crutial means to enhance european competetiveness. The EU is substansially lagging behind its main competitors (USA, Japan) in this domain, furthermore developing countries (China, India) have recently been makinggreat progress, thus posing additional challanges to our continent.  The EU needs to assess the present situation as soon as possible and meet the latest challenges in the most efficient way. In order to achieve this objective, the concept of the European Research Area (ERA) has been elaborated with the aim of reorganising, regrouping and integrating existing structures. The open method of coordination (OMC) is playing an important role in the implementation of this common area. It constitutes an alternative policy-making merthod to pure „intergovernmentalism” and the„community method”. The OMC in the field of research policy is coordinated by the Scientific and Research Committe (CREST), which provides a forum for member states to share their experience and reach their common goals.


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