The 2011 annual Mitchell lecture, honouring Prof J D B Mitchell (the founder of the Europa Institute), was given by John Peterson of Edinburgh Politics/IR on 23 February 2011. The event was chaired by Dr Michael Shackleton, Head of the European Parliament's main UK office in London.

John presented findings from the EU and ESRC-funded project: 'The European Commission of the 21st Century'. The project produced the largest data set ever generated on the attitudes of European Commission officials, and was endorsed by the Commission's President, José Manuel Barroso. A podcast of the lecture - entitled 'The European Commission: World's Most Modern Administration or Stuck in the Past?' - is available here.

On 13 October 2010, The Europa Institute held a Programme Launch for 2010/11, hosted by Caitriona Carter, Chad Damro and Drew Scott.

The event was attended by colleagues throughout CHSS who research and teach on Europe and the European Union. In addition to disseminating the Europa Institute's 2010-11 programme of activities, colleagues were informed about new initiatives including the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, Heath Fellows and Visiting Scholars. The event also provided an informal opportunity for colleagues from different disciplines to meet and share a drink together.

The Institute introduced an important new SSRN working paper series - the Edinburgh Europa Paper Series. The aim of this series is to render more visible the rich and varied multi-disciplinary research work on Europe and the European Union being carried out by colleagues across CHSS. Although the Europa Institute has tended in the past to be associated with the disciplines of political science, law and economics, this paper series seeks to enlarge the research identity of the Institute. For example, contributions are welcome from colleagues from within history, sociology, educational sociology, anthropology, social theory, science and technology studies, geography, accountancy, social policy - as well as from law, political science and economics.

The meeting also gave colleagues an opportunity to express views on how the collectivity of our research on Europe and the EU in Edinburgh can be enhanced and the future role for the Europa Institute in facilitating this process.

The EU's Executive Agency for Education, Audiovisual and Culture has awarded the University of Edinburgh a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence.  This award is in recognition of the leading role played by University of Edinburgh academics in the study of the European Union.  The University of Edinburgh is the only Centre awarded in the UK for the 2010-13 period and one of only ten awarded in the EU for this period.

The application was prepared by David Howarth, the Jean Monnet Chair, with the help of the Europa Steering Committee. Dr. Howarth, who is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and IR, will chair the Centre of Excellence and manage its funds in coordination with the Europa Institute.  The EU provides 75,000 euros of funding to the Centre over the three year period. While the Centre is distinct from the Europa Institute, its funds will be used to support and build upon the existing activities of the Institute, including the organisation of conferences, workshops, visiting speakers, visiting scholars and out-reach events.

Jean Monnet Chair funding from the European Commission has been awarded to Dr. David Howarth of the School of Social and Political Science for the period 2008-2011. The Chair funds teaching assistance on EU-related courses, a visiting speaker series and outreach activities on EU affairs.  Podcasts associated with some of the speaker visits can be found here.

Staff from Europa/Social Sciences (Caitríona Carter), School of Social and Political Studies (Richard Freeman) and the Centre for Educational Sociology (Martin Lawn) have successfully bid for a Europa Institute funded seminar series on “Practicing EU government: Problematisation, Mobilisation, Legitimation”.

This seminar series aims to engage and take a lead in debates to consolidate a ‘political sociological’ approach to EU studies. To provide direction and focus, the organisers critically appraise the ‘distinctiveness’ of political sociology’s application to EU government in two concrete ways: first, regarding the object of study, they ask a sociology of ‘what’?; second, regarding methodological tools, they ask ‘how’ to study ‘government’ as a set of institutionalising regulatory practices and interactions, instruments and ideas. Their discussions will be organised in four half-day seminars centred upon cross-cutting debates within political sociology and as applied to ‘practicing EU government’. Each seminar will be led by an invited external speaker, followed by three papers from Europa/Edinburgh colleagues. All seminars will be held January-June 2009, to maximize the intensity and continuity of discussions.

Further details of the seminar series can be found here.

Staff from Politics/IR (Elizabeth Bomberg, Chad Damro) and Law (Navraj Singh) have successfully bid for a Europa Institute-funded seminar series on 'The EU, Climate Change and Global Environmental Governance'.  Bringing together experts and practitioners from Scotland, EU and US, as well as a range of visiting academics, the series will offer an interdisciplinary perspective on climate change and  transatlantic relations, inter-governmental (multi-level) interaction, and implications for global environmental justice.   Further details of an initial event organised within the Law School on post-Kyoto can be found here and information on the seminars during 2009 can be found here

Several members of the Europa Institute will be involved with the MERCURY project.

The project will be headed up by Edinburgh's Politics and International Relations Department and will involve eight other universities in Europe, Africa and Asia. It will study the EU's contribution to multilateralism. It's remit will extend to the interactions of the EU and its member states with regions outside Europe, strategic partners, and global organisations. It is interdisciplinary, drawing on expertise in law, politics, economics, and international relations. The full team includes the University of Edinburgh; the University of Cologne; Cambridge University; the Institute of International Affairs (Rome); Sciences Po, Paris; SIPRI (Stockholm); Charles University (Prague); the University of Pretoria; and Fudan University (Shanghai).

Further details of the project can be found here.

Edinburgh Europa Institute members Neil Walker and Jo Shaw, along with Institute member Stephen Tierney, have been awarded a British Academy Grant enabling them to undertake a research project, including a series of seminars and an edited collection, on the topic of 'Europe's Constitutional Mosaic'. Further details here.

The School of Law has recently announced *The Binks Trust Scholarships* to support students taking the LLM in European Law, which will be available from the academic year 2008-2009. More details on the LLM webpage.