Written by: Maylany Ika Putri
BRUSSELS- On 17-18 October 2016, Programme on European Studies (EUROS), which is one of working groups under the Institute of International Studies (IIS), Department of International Relations Universitas Gadjah Mada was very honoured to have been invited to the Jean Monnet/ECSA Conference in Brussels on 17-18 October 2016. This meeting was organised by the Jean Monnet professors from all over the world, particularly, those who take European studies as their main topic of interest in teaching or research. Jean Monnet is a prestigious programme funded by the European Commission to support education in higher institution, especially at Post-Doctoral level. ECSA (European Community Studies Association) itself is a group of various associations from different countries that share the same purpose to reinforce teaching and research on European integration and have the legal personality according to the laws of the single State. Currently, there are about 60 ECSA members, which come from national and regional associations. And for the time being, Indonesia has not yet become one of the members.
Seeing the importance of this worldwide networking, EUROS UGM, as part of Indonesian Community for European Studies (ICES/KIKE), has been trying to build the communication with various European scholars for these four or five years. So, it was not our first attempt that we finally participated in this invitation-only conference. As the representative of EUROS UGM and ICES, as well as the only scholar from Indonesia, Muhadi Sugiono was very honoured to present at conference, which consisted of mix plenary sessions and panel discussion. Even, Muhadi was invited to be an observer in the Board Meeting of the ECSA. This Board Meeting was aimed to vote the new president of ECSA.
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This year, Jean Monnet/ECSA Conference discussed the theme on Global Governance in times of Global Challenges. For the more specific topics in the working panel sessions, there are three distinguished issues being discussed on peace and security, prosperity, and democracy. These various topics were based on the recently adopted European Union Global Strategy. Besides the Jean Monnet scholars, there were also representatives from European Union External Action Service (EEAS) and some department of European Commission participated in the conference. This occasion, therefore, was a great chance for the EU to disseminate their current policies to the Jean Monnet scholars, as well as to give the opportunity for the scholars to give the feedback on the EU strategy and some specific policy questions.
Not only participated in the Jean Monnet/ECSA Conference, EUROS UGM was also fortunate to have been welcomed to visit the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium and the Amsterdam Centre for Contemporary European Studies (ACCESS EUROPE) in the Netherlands. Both visitations were aimed to broaden the possibility of cooperation among European enthusiast across nations in the future. By this kind of networking activities, EUROS UGM has a high hope to sound the European studies community in Indonesia louder, internationally, as well as to support the UGM vision as a world-class research university.
Maylany Ika Putri is currently Project Officer for Programme on European Studies UGM. She can be reached via maylanyip13@gmail.com or phone (+62 857 4331 3427).