The European Union Center of Excellence at the University of California, Berkeley is a joint effort of the Institute of European Studies and the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, working in cooperation with the School of Public Health, the Institute of Governmental Studies, the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, and the School of Law on the UC Berkeley campus. The EU Center develops and promotes education, research, and outreach programs aimed at mainstreaming EU perspectives on a wide variety of issues through its educational, business, scientific, and policy networks. The Center broadly disseminates research and focuses training on targeted aspects of European integration and the EU’s new global role. It serves as a regional resource center for undergraduate and graduate interdisciplinary education, outreach to the wider educational and scientific and business communities, people-to-people and electronic exchanges, and conferences focused on key aspects of European Union and its role in the world. With the creation of this EU Center of Excellence, UC Berkeley will continue to play a vital role in promoting a deeper understanding of the European Union and raise the level of dialogue and discourse on transatlantic relations throughout the State of California.

The EU Center supports a number of activities related to the better understanding of and teaching about the European Union. Academic opportunities include faculty research grants, curriculum development grants, pre-dissertation/dissertation fellowships for graduate students, support of the annual Claremont – UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union, and a working papers series. In addition, the EU Center supports a visiting speaker series and a series of conferences and workshops on the following themes: Transatlantic Relations in a Post-Transatlantic World; the Euro, the European Union, and the World; Facing New Challenges: EU-U.S. Collaboration and “Best Practices” to Solve Global Health, Energy, and Environmental Problems; and Immigration, Integration, and Cultural Change in the European Union.

• Beverley Crawford, Co-director and Associate Director, Institute of European Studies
• Jeffrey Pennington, Co-director and Executive Director, Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
• Noga Wizansky, Assistant Director

• Transatlantic Relations in a Post-Transatlantic World — assesses the changing nature of the transatlantic economic, social, and political relationship in a world in which China, Russia, and India are rapidly rising to great power status, a world in which the EU has assumed the role of a major international actor, and a world in which global problems require broad cooperative global solutions.
• The Euro, the Union, and the World — addresses issues such as the Euro’s growing international role, the accession of new EU members in the Euro-zone, and the impact of the Euro on fragile European economies. Our pursuit of this theme will draw on the internationally recognized strengths of UC Berkeley faculty in economic and monetary analysis.
• Facing New Challenges: EU-U.S. Collaboration and “Best Practices” to Solve Global Health, Energy, and Environmental Problems — focuses on a range of new governance problems facing both the EU and the U.S., including cross-border public health threats, threats of resource scarcity, the environment, and regulation across issue areas. The EU Center will partner with the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health within UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health in order to tap world class faculty expertise for research and discussion of institutional responses to these issues.
• Immigration, Integration, and Cultural Change in the European Union — EU Center activities in this area are particularly appropriate because they will commence in the 2008 “Year for Intercultural Dialogue” and address the EU Commission’s Cultural Agenda for Europe. Partners for the EU Center in pursuit of this theme will be Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, the Chief Justice Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity within the UC Berkeley School of Law, and the multi-campus research center on Comparative Immigration and Integration, located at the University of California, Davis

The Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence, (MEUCE) is a consortium of Florida International University (FIU) and the University of Miami (UM). At FIU, it is housed within the School of International and Public Affairs at the College of Arts & Sciences. At UM it is administered by the Jean Monnet Chair, located within the Department of International Studies, which reports to the Dean of Arts and Sciences.

The mission of the Miami-Florida EUCE is to promote teaching, research, and outreach activities relating to the EU. To accomplish this mission, the Miami-Florida EUCE facilitates the development of new courses on the EU, provides for financial assistance to graduate students and faculty pursuing research on topics related to the EU, holds academic conferences on EU matters, sponsors public lectures featuring EU speakers, and conducts outreach workshops for educators, journalists and media professionals and the greater Miami business community.

The Center runs a European Studies Certificate program that is open to all FIU undergraduates with an interest in any aspect of European civilization, past or present. It is an interdisciplinary program that draws on a broad range of courses from throughout FIU to complement a student's own interests. The program offers a senior colloquium, European Identities, that allows students the opportunity to engage in research on topics of their own choosing in close conjunction with a member of the program faculty.

• Dr. Joaquìn Roy, Co-Director, University of Miami
• Dr. Rebecca Friedman, Co-Director, Florida International University
• Christine I. Caly-Sanchez, Assistant Director, Florida International University

• John D. Stephens, Director and Lenski Professor of Political Science and Sociology
• Erica Edwards, Executive Director
• Gali Beeri, International Outreach Program Coordinator
• Sarah Hutchison, Graduate Programs (TransAtlantic Masters and European Governance)
• Tanya Kinsella, Undergraduate Programs (EURO major and Languages Across the Curriculum)
• Stephanie Volk, Financial Services
• Phil Daquila, Digital Producer

The EUCE of North Carolina is directed by John Stephens, assisted by Erica Edwards and supported by an advisory board of nine faculty members from political science, history, sociology, geography, romance languages, and the School of Law. The EUCE is a component of the Center for European Studies, which includes an undergraduate major, a program in Languages Across the Curriculum, and two MA level programs of study relating to European governance and transatlantic relations. The center is based in the College of Arts and Sciences and reports to the Dean of the College. We are housed in the FedEx Global Education Center, built in 2007 for area studies programs and related units on campus. UNC has eight area studies centers in African Studies, Asian Studies, European Studies, Middle-East Studies, Russian and East European Studies, South Asian Studies, the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and the Center for Global Initiatives.

The EUCE of North Carolina funds faculty and graduate student research in a competitive process. Overall our research and teaching themes are transatlantic relations, European integration, and European and comparative social policy.

The Center offers a BA in Contemporary European Studies, an MA in Political Science, concentration Transatlantic Studies, run in conjunction with six European universities, and in 2008 we began enrolling students in a new MA program in Political Science, concentration European Governance, run in conjunction with the Free University, Amsterdam, and Sciences Po, Paris. We also run a graduate certificate program, Teaching Languages Across the Curriculum.

• Douglas Biow, Co-Director and Principal Investigator, Director of the Center for European Studies, and Superior Oil Company-Linward Shivers Centennial Professor
• Gary Freeman, Co-Director and Chair of the Department of Government
• Mary Neuburger, Associate Director, Chair of the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and Associate Professor of History
• Sally Dickson, Senior Program Coordinator
• Charlotte Harris, Administrative Associate
• Noah Koubenec, Communications Specialist

The EU Center of Excellence, housed in the Center of European Studies in the College of Liberal Arts, is directed by Douglas Biow and Gary Freeman and supported by an advisory board composed of faculty members from the LBJ School of Public Affairs; the Department of History; British Studies; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies; the Jackson School of Geosciences; the Department of Germanic Studies; and the Law School. Additionally, the Center receives support from, and works closely with, the deans, faculty, and staff of the College of Liberal Arts, the Law School, the LBJ School of Public Affairs, the School of Communications, the Cockrell School of Engineering, and the McCombs School of Business.

The primary aim of the EU Center of Excellence at the University of Texas at Austin is to spur dialogue on the common challenges facing the European Union and the United States and to create opportunities for Europeans and Americans to discuss and evaluate contending policy solutions. In doing so, the Center will engage the best minds in academia, government, business, and the not-for-profit sectors in its activities. The Center will work strenuously to publicize its events, competitions, and research with an active outreach program that will take full advantage of the powers of the Internet.

The overarching theme of the EU Center of Excellence at UT-Austin is Trans-National Policy Challenges, with three distinct sub-themes explored in three sets of conferences over the grant period: Post-Recession Policy Challenges in year one; Geopolitics as Trans-National Policy Challenge in year two; and Law and Media in year three.

The Center of European Studies, in which the EU Center of Excellence is housed, offers a B.A., along with a certificate, in European Studies. It also has a doctoral portfolio program in European Studies. The Center is in the process of developing and submitting to the coordinating board a proposal for an M.A. in European Studies in partnership with the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

• Myra Marx Ferree – Director, EUCE, Alice H. Cook Professor of Sociology and Gender & Women’s Studies
• Elizabeth Covington – Associate Director, EUCE/Executive Director, ESA
• Csanád Z. Siklós – Assistant Director/Outreach Specialist, ESA
• Taylan Acar – Project Assistant, EUCE

1. The EU as a Global Actor (Leader: Kris Olds, Geography)

   This theme examines the global dimensions of EU policy-making and institution-building, particularly in the realms of the knowledge economy, technology and science, and energy and foreign policy:

   • Global Regionalisms, Governance and Higher Education (Kris Olds, Geography, and Mark Johnson, Educational Policy Studies)
   • European Inter-Regionalisms: Higher Education vs. Research (Kris Olds, with Mark Johnson)
   • The Impact of European Technical Assistance and Institutional Reform Practices in the former Socialist Bloc and Developing World (Mark Johnson, with Kris Olds)
   • Global Health, Development and Security (Tom Oliver, Population Health Science)
   • Leadership and Governance for Health in All Policies (Tom Oliver)
   • Transatlantic Security Cooperation (Jon Pevehouse, Political Science)
   • Global Science: Communication and Ethics (Linda Hogle, Medical History and Bioethics, and Dominique Brossard, Life Sciences Communication)
   • Technology Policy and Assessment in Flux: Uncertainties, Institutional Changes and Emerging Medical Technologies (Linda Hogle)
   • Science, the Public, and Global Communication (Dominique Brossard)
   • Global Energy Security (Paul Wilson, Engineering)
2. EU Legislation, Policymaking and Regulation (Leader: Nils Ringe, Political Science)

   This theme examines current transformations of European law and governance, focusing on who participates in processes of legislation, policy making and regulation, how, and with what outcomes:

   • The Formal and Informal Politics of European Law Making (Nils Ringe, Political Science)
   • Performance Management as Governance Tool: Evidence from the European Union (Donald Moynihan, Public Affairs)
   • Civil Society Organization(s) in the Global Era (Elizabeth Covington, European Studies)
   • The Future of the Eurozone: Monetary and Financial Governance in the Wake of the Crisis (Mark Copelovitch, Political Science/Public Affairs)
3. Diversity and Accountability, Rights and Responsibilities: Managing Challenges of Multi-Level Social Policy in Advanced Democracies (Leader: Myra Marx Ferree, Sociology and Gender & Women’s Studies)

   This theme examines how EU policymaking across its 27 diverse member states poses particular challenges for realizing its commitment in the Lisbon Treaty to social inclusion in the face of multiple forms of inequality:

   • Women’s Rights and EU Policy Development: Intersectional Perspectives (Myra Marx Ferree)
   • Inequality and Intergenerational Mobility in Comparative Perspective (Timothy Smeeding, Public Affairs)
   • Demography, Inequality, and Policy in New Member States (Theodore Gerber, Sociology)
   • European Union Constitutional Law and Human Rights (Heinz Klug, Law)

Wisconsin EUCE participates in the European Studies Certificate for undergraduates (minors do not exist on this campus), which enrolls more than 500 students per semester. We also co-sponsor the six-week Brussels Summer EU Study Abroad Program for undergraduates with our partner, the University of Washington-Seattle.

Wisconsin EUCE offers competitive research travel awards for both faculty and graduate students, as well as five semester-long Research Assistantships for graduate students, three of which are for our formal spring-semester exchange to the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.