Dr. Annegret Eppler has been successful in her bid for the prestigious Jean Monnet funding grant with her project on Centrifugal and Centripetal Dynamics in the EU Multi-level System (EUDYNAM), which will enhance research, teaching and learning on the European Union (EU) at the Department of Political Science of the University of Innsbruck.

Part of the European Union’s (EU) long-established Lifelong Learning Programme now known as ‘Erasmus Plus’, Jean Monnet activities are designed to stimulate excellence in teaching, research, reflection and debate in any aspect of European integration studies in higher education institutions within and beyond the EU.

The project “Centrifugal and Centripetal Dynamics in the EU Multi-level System” (EUDYNAM)

aims at directing the academic and public attention to the current dynamics in the EU multi-level system. Against the backdrop of the current developments of the EU system since the outbreak of the financial crisis, EUDYNAM will analyse centrifugal and centripetal dynamics in different dimensions of EU-Integration (institutional, economic, territorial, legitimacy), and illuminate theoretical explanatory approaches for these dynamics. As the topic is prevailing and has a high relevance both politically and scientifically, the project addresses students, political practicioners, the scientific community as well as the general public.

EUDYNAM consists of three elements, interactively connecting the teaching and learning of a highly topical and relevant subject for the future of the EU with the current EU-research as well as the public debate with the politics and the general public: 

(1)   Six innovative seminars for students of the BA-, MA- and PhD-programmes at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Innsbruck about the current dynamics of the EU-multi-level system and possible theoretical explanations

(2)   Three (semi-)public events about specific aspects of current dynamics that are especially perceived by the European Civil Society and political practitioners in which students are highly integrated

(3)   A publication and dissemination strategy to make the contents of the classes and events assessable for the public and brings the topic into the scientific community (online presence, talks at scientific conferences on European Integration studies, a workshop that brings together scholars and practitioners as well as different scientific publications