On 2 March 2018, Mathias Holvoet defended his PhD thesis entitled “A policy to commit atrocity, understanding the “policy element” for the purpose of defining crimes against humanity”. His promotors were Prof. dr. P. De Hert and Prof. dr. S. Smis.

As a PhD researcher at the IES, Mathias was affiliated with the Faculty of Law and Criminology.  He was a member of the IES’ Migration, Diversity and Justice Cluster. Within the field of International Criminal Law, his work focused on the law of crimes against humanity, the relationship of International Criminal Law with neighbouring fields such as International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law and International Refugee Law and the continuing relevance of hybrid or internationalized criminal mechanisms within International Criminal Justice.

The EL-CSID Workshop on "Diplomacy and Development: Trends and Challenges for Europe and Its Partners" seeks to investigate the role of cultural and scientific diplomacy with respect to the foreign policy ambitions of the EU and its member states. Discussion will also cover other forms of the ‘new diplomacy’. The workshop is organised by Nazarbayev University, in collaboration with the University of Warwick and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and will be held on 14-15 May 2018 in Leuven, Belgium.

The IES has been selected to assist the Flemish government with the development of an exploratory study for the development of industrial low-carbon roadmaps. 
This research will analyse emissions and economic performance of Flemish energy intensive industries and will asses existing sectoral low-carbon roadmaps (at EU level), including their relevance for Flanders. The IES will next, with the input of stakeholders, outline how one or more industrial low-carbon roadmaps can be developed  and implemented for Flanders. 
 

On 26 September, IES Executive Director Anthony Antoine delivered a keynote speech on "the salient role of the universities in implementing the UN 2030 Agenda and the particular importance of societal impact of multidisciplinary research in developing sustainable and global solutions" at the Helsinki Challenge Global Impact Camp in Brussels. The Global Impact Camp in Brussels was a two-day intensive co-creation session focusing on societal impact of research, funding and collaboration with international experts and EU decision-makers. 

On 23 January the PARENT project team met with a diverse set of stakeholders, all active in their own way to help transform energy-related attitudes in Brussels. Project participants, social workers, representatives from citizen associations, local governments and Bruxelles Environnement sat around the table to map energy reduction and sustainability initiatives and categorize them by actor and focus. We also assessed how these measures are communicated and offered to citizens.

On 25 and 26 January, IES Academic Director, Luk Van Langenhove attended the launch of a new Horizon 2020 project on science diplomacy “InsSciDe” and delivered a keynote speech on “European Science Diplomacy in search of a purpose”. Dr Luk Van Langenhove is the lead scientist of the Horizon 2020 project EL-CSID on science and cultural diplomacy, that is coordinated by the IES.

The new Horizon 2020 project consists of 14 research institutes from 11 European member states and will run for 4 years. 

The Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games have already served one very important purpose: helping to thaw inter-Korean relations. Since engagement is a key element of President Moon Jae-in’s North Korea policy, it is highly likely that Seoul will continue to seek exchanges with Pyongyang. It is thus up to the Kim Jong-un regime to accept Seoul’s olive branch and contribute to improving inter-Korean relations. With Pyongyang continuing to support – or at least accept – domestic economic reform and marketization, economic and technical support from Seoul is crucial. Indeed, the goodwill that most South Koreans still seem to hold towards their poorer Northern neighbour and the funding that South Korea can provide cannot be matched by any other country. For Seoul, engagement can serve to ease inter-Korean tensions, make it ever-more difficult for Pyongyang to reverse reforms, and put South Korea in the driving seat of Korean Peninsula affairs.

On 22 March, IES Academic Director Luk Van Langenhove will act as discussant to Prof. Luc Soete’s talk on “Europe’s future R&I policy – Visions and values for Openness”.

This event is the last of a Tour d’ Europe, organized by the E.C., in the 28 capitals of the EU in order to discuss the outcome of a report prepared by the RISE independent expert advisory group to Commissioner Carlos Moedas. 

On Tuesday February 27 policy think tank Public Policy Exchange arranged a full day conference in downtown Brussels on “Fostering the Transition towards a Circular economy in Europe: Turning Waste into a Resource”.  The conference was quite suitably arranged at the very moment that the COREPER reached an agreement on the “classic hard core” of the Circular Economy package: four pieces of waste legislation. 

Sebastian Oberthür has been appointed by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) to serve as a member of the expert panel G&M4: Social, Political and Communication Sciences for an initial term of one year (2018). The expert panel in particular is mandated to assess applications for PhD and postdoctoral fellowships submitted to the FWO. The FWO describes these expert panels as its beating heart. By submitting scientific advice to the Senate and the Board of Trustees, they play a crucial role in the development of research in Flanders. Professor Oberthür’s appointment is an acknowledgement of his expertise in International Relations and European Studies, and of the IES’ reputation as a trusted advisor to Flemish public authorities.

The shared threat emanating from Pyongyang creates a centripetal force that binds Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul because the three partners need mutual assistance. On the other hand, however, the high stakes involved in the North Korea policy of these states also intensify discord over the means to address the threat, thereby producing a centrifugal force. Policies that hurt each other’s fundamental security interests have to be pursued only with careful consultation with the partners, for both the policies’ effectiveness and for the maintenance of the partnerships. For effective cooperation, the U.S., Japanese, and ROK governments must all embrace the centripetal force of the North Korean threat while being mindful of the centrifugal force.

On 28 March 2017, the IES (VUB) and the IEE (ULB) co-organised a panel debate on the reform of the EU’s asylum system in the Ravenstein Gallery in the centre of Brussels. The event was part of the VUB-ULB initiative ‘konekt.brussels’, which sought to improve the links between the Brussels-based universities and the city of Brussels. The guiding question for the event was: ‘Is the reform of the EU’s asylum system on track?’. It was debated by a high-level group of experts consisting of Prof. Philippe De Bruycker (IEE), Stefan Maier (UNHCR), Sara Silvestre (IES), Jihad Mustafa (VUB Refugee Student) and Dr. Leonhard den Hertog (Policy Advisor in the European Parliament). IES Prof. Florian Trauner moderated the discussion.

Vrije Universiteit Brussel and University of Warwick to establish a double master’s in Politics, International Studies and European Integration

On Wednesday 28 March, Caroline Pauwels, rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), and Stuart Croft, vice-chancellor of the University of Warwick in the UK, signed a collaboration agreement in the University of Warwick’s base in London’s Shard building. This is a remarkable move, as the consequences of Brexit for cooperation between European and British institutions are still not clear. The two universities are aiming to strengthen their ties – beginning with a joint master's programme in Politics, International Studies and European Integration.
 

Prof. Florian Trauner has signed contracts for two publication projects of Oxford University Press (OUP). He was asked to write articles for the ‘Oxford Encyclopaedia of European Union Politics’ , dedicated to the study of EU politics, and to ‘Oxford Bibliographies’, a peer-reviewed online reference resource meant to guide researchers through the literature. The theme of both contributions will relate to the field of EU Justice and Home Affairs.

The IES Doctoral researcher Matilda Axelson has been involved in the development of a recently launched report by IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development) and the i24C (the Industrial Innovation for Competitiveness initiative), titled “Low-carbon innovation for sustainable infrastructure – The role of public procurement”.

Public procurement is a powerful tool which can be used to generate demand for innovative, low-carbon solutions that go in line with governmental goals, such as employment, sustainable development and a low-carbon transition for infrastructure. The public purse has a particularly strong impact on European goods, services and infrastructure, and can, if wisely managed, act as an enabler for driving markets towards more sustainable production patterns.

IES Professor Sebastian Oberthür gave a keynote presentation on “Polycentric Climate Governance: Challenges and Opportunities for the EU” at the Final Conclusions Meeting of the COST Action INOGOV, a pan-European network of research excellence dedicated to understanding policy and governance innovation for climate change, on 15 March 2018 in the Norway House in Brussels. 

The German Bertelsmann Stiftung has today released its updated Transformation Index (BTI 2018). Every second year, the BTI measures political and economic progress in 129 transformation countries around the world and belongs to the most detailed comparative country analyses.

IES researcher Jan Claudius Völkel serves as the BTI’s Regional Coordinator Middle East & North Africa, and is hence responsible for the detailed assessment of 19 MENA countries, which stretch from Morocco in the West to Iran in the East, and from Turkey in the North to Sudan in the South. For this, he has organised and supervised the conduct of independent analyses by two renowned experts per country. The findings are worrying: overall, democracy has reached its lowest level ever in the MENA region, only Tunisia has stabilised its achievements since the 2011 revolution.

IES Academic Director, Luk Van Langenhove, is moderating a debate organized by the University of Warwick on “Refugee resettlement, Access to Work and Populism. From migration to integration in Europe” on 1 February at the Brussels Warwick Office. The event brings together researchers and policy-makers to discuss research conducted in three European countries (Austria, Sweden and the UK). For more information, please visit this website.