Dear friends and colleagues,

It is a pleasure to welcome you back to campus for another academic year. The last few months were full of events that touched our community directly or indirectly. I would like to mention two.

The first, a positive development, is the financial recognition that the EUC has received from the European Union (the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence grant) and the U.S. Department of Education (the Title VI NRC and FLAS grants). We actively pursue an inclusive educational model that focuses on sustainable development and democratic participation because we believe that it is both just and effective. We are always happy to see that important institutions recognize our efforts and want to contribute to the success of the EUC’s community.

The second one, complex and dramatic, is the war in Ukraine, which reinforces our commitment to the research on peaceful management of international relations, transatlantic collaboration, and vigilance on human rights and refugees’ lives. I believe that our community can contribute significantly to the creation of policies and perspectives that are grounded in serious research and answer the challenges of today’s global world. For this reason, we are inviting, for the coming academic year, our old friends and colleagues and a new generation of students and colleagues to join us in discovering new ideas, as well as existing best practices and solutions across the Atlantic. Sustainability and inclusivity are the keywords we used repeatedly in our successful applications: we hope you can help us to live up to our promises.

Emanuel Rota

Director, European Union Center