InvigoratEU: Invigorating Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy for a Resilient Europe

  • Area: Our Europe
  • Donor: European Union (Horizon Europe)
  • Duration: 2024-2026
  • Partners: Universität Duisburg-Essen, Institut für Europäische Politik + 15 partners

Funded within the framework of Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation, this project is dedicated to exploring avenues for the future of the EU’s enlargement. The central question the project aims to address is: How can the EU invigorate its Enlargement and Neighbourhood policy to enhance Europe’s resilience?

The first goal is to investigate how to reform the EU’s enlargement strategy in a new geopolitical phase, how to respond to other actors’ geopolitical ambitions in the Eastern Neighbourhood and Western Balkans, and how to rebuild the EU’s foreign policy arsenal in view of a new era of military threats (triple “R” approach) combining the modernisation and geopolitical logics of EU enlargement, leading to new data – e.g. a public opinion survey in Ukraine, a set of scenarios, an external influence index (Russia, China, Turkey), and a social policy compliance and cohesion scoreboard.

The second goal is to elaborate an evidence-based, forward-looking vision for the EU’s political agenda and institutional frameworks for co-designing a multidimensional toolbox (i.e. two tailor-made toolkits), together with InvigoratEU´s Expert Hub, Civil Society (CS) Network, Youth Labs, Workshops for Young Professionals and Policy Debates in a gaming set up, which will result in context-sensitive and actionable policy recommendations for European and national political stakeholders and (young) European citizens in particular.

The third goal is to deploy a CDE (communication, dissemination, and exploitation) strategy aiming at recommendations from Day 1 to maximise the project’s scientific, policy and societal impact in invigorating the EU´s enlargement and neighbourhood policies to enhance Europe´s resilience.

Ultimately, InvigoratEU is a deliberately large consortium respecting the diversity of Europe and political perspectives; 7 out of 18 are from Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Western Balkans (North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia), complemented by a CS Network of 9 representatives from all Western Balkan countries, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Partners:

  1. Universität Duisburg-Essen (Coordinator), Germany
  2. Institut für Europäische Politik (Scientific Lead), Germany
  3. PMC Research Center, Georgia
  4. SS Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia
  5. Asociata Obsteasca Institutul pentru Initiative Strategice, Moldova
  6. Javna ustanova Univerzitet Crne Gore Podgorica, Montenegro
  7. European Policy Centre (CEP), Serbia
  8. Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies Named after Oleksandr Razumkov, Ukraine
  9. Trans European Policy Studies Association, Belgium
  10. Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Finland
  11. Istituto Affari Internazionali, Italy
  12. Latvijas Arpolitikas Instituts, Latvia
  13. Vilniaus Universitetas, Lithuania
  14. Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Poland
  15. Centre d’Informacio i Documentation Internacionals a Barcelona, Spain
  16. Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands
  17. Carnegie Europe Foundation, Belgium
  18. Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland

Contact Person: Ljubica Kovačević, Project Manager (ljubica.kovacevic@cep.org.rs)

Project Homepage: 

https://invigorat.eu/

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