The Institute of European Studies at IU’s School of Global and International Studies has been awarded a three-year grant by the European Commission.
The grant will support research, the creation of new courses and the enhancement of student career opportunities, according to an Aug. 25 press release.
This grant makes IU one in a group of U.S. and European universities known as Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence, a network established by the European Union. IU is the only U.S. university selected this year for the grant, according to the release.
Along with supporting research, new courses and career opportunities, the $112,000 grant supports workshops that will bring both European and American experts to IU-Bloomington’s campus and to the IU Europe Gateway in Berlin.
The new courses that the grant will help fund will address issues such as refugees in Europe, cybersecurity and privacy, and economic inequality, according to the release.
The funds will allow the institute to collaborate with other Monnet Centres and allow for more European specialists to visit IU-Bloomington, the release said.
The centers are meant to bring together resources in various disciplines of European studies and create collaborative activities and links between universities in different countries, according to the program’s website.
It will also expand the institute’s Midwest Model European Union. The three-day conference brings students from around the U.S. to Bloomington, where they take on the roles of different members of the European Union. They then discuss policy, resolve disputes and build compromises, according to the conference’s website.
The conference, which was created in 1993 on IU-Purdue University Indianapolis’s campus, moved to IU-Bloomington in spring 2014. This year’s conference will take place in April and is one of a half dozen of these events in the U.S.
The institute’s mission is to enhance the education of specialists of European languages, culture and politics. It also serves to create a better understanding of Europe and its relationship with the U.S. and to be a resource for the University, according to the release.
Lee Feinstein, dean of the School of Global and International Studies, said this grant comes at an important time. The EU is facing unprecedented economic, security and societal challenges, he added in the release.
Tim Hellwig, the Institute of European Studies outgoing director, said it’s in the EU’s best interest to get students from around the world to address Europe’s current pressing problems.
“Today Europe is very much front and center when it comes to world problems,” Hellwig said in the August release. “The European Union is under fire in a way that it has not been in since perhaps its 50-year existence.”
Laurel Demkovich
