Eui - RSC - STG 2
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vivekdivekarEui - RSC - STG 2
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vivekdivekarResearch Themes
The Robert Schuman Centre focuses on three research themes and aims to address key
questions about the functioning of the European Union and its role in the 21st century.
Integration, Governance and Democracy
The European Union is the world’s most developed form of transnational governance. However,
the EU model experiences times of unparalleled challenge, deep tensions prevail and it is timely
to reconsider some of the complex and pressing questions that arise on economic, legal,
political and social integration and the way in which these interact.
Over the years, the treaties and their iterative reform process progressively created a distinctive
European constitutionalism that has gone beyond market making to include Union citizenship,
rights and shared values. The Lisbon treaty introduced significant new roles and rules in a
number of policy areas, and institutional balances in the Union have shifted.
Building on a strong research record, the challenges and opportunities for democracy in Europe,
both within member states and in the EU – European Union Democracy
Observatory – migration – Migration Policy Centre –pluralism and freedom – Centre for Media
Pluralism and Media Freedom – as well as cultural diversity and the role of religion in Europe
– ReligioWest, continue to be central issues of the Centre’s research agenda.
Regulating Markets and Governing Money
The single market is one of the essential pillars of integration, but by definition it is never
complete. As it develops, new economic sectors, interests and actors emerge requiring it to
readjust with the changing environment.
The Robert Schuman Centre, in particular the Florence School of Regulation, develops
research, training and fosters policy dialogue to address the many questions about competition
policy, the “four freedoms” - free movement of people, goods, services and capital - regulatory
agencies, the balance between economic, social and environmental interests and the
complexities of regulation in a multi-mode and multi-level context.
The euro crisis has had a major impact on the EU and has raised critical questions concerning,
for example, the pressures for further centralisation in banking, finance and the fiscal area; the
consequences of the crisis for the real economy; economic reform processes within member
states; further integration within the euro area. At the Robert Schuman Centre, the Pierre
Werner Chair and the Tommaso Padoa Schioppa Chair, the latter of which was inaugurated in
2014, contribute to the advancement of research on these issues and address the medium-term
policy questions.
21st Century World Politics and Europe
Globalisation, as a process of growing interdependence between people linked together
economically and socially, has increased pressures for an enhanced capacity for global
governance in many policy fields. If the EU has been a significant player in this process, it is
more so in the emergent 21st century.
The Robert Schuman Centre supports research on the role of the EU as a model and actor of
global governance and as a player in the contemporary international system. The Centre
promotes research, training and policy dialogue – Global Governance Programme – on the role
of the Union in a range of foreign policy fields, such as international trade, investment,
development co-operation, human rights, democratisation, security and defence. It also
analyses the EU as a testing ground for governance beyond national borders and as a highly
developed form of transnational integration – Borderlands.
