ENACTEDNetwork

Assessing the impact and limits of the EU’s neighbourhood

instruments in the eastern borderland regions.

According to many studies, since its inception the neighbourhood strategy of the EU has hardly been able to alleviate the difficulties post-Soviet Eastern Europe faces. Despite being committed to supporting reforms in the fields of democracy promotion, human rights, good governance and economy, the incentive-based approach has not been sufficiently strong. Most of the EaP countries have embarked in the past years on a reversed path, amidst growing illiberal and anti-democratic trends. Moreover, the Eastern proximity of the EU has gradually turned into a less stable and secured area, in spite of the originally stated goal of regional stability. Particularly the Ukrainian crisis which erupted in the days after the EaP Summit in Vilnius in November 2013 has had a damaging effect on the EU ‘transformative power’ in the region. OBJECTIVES: the current research aims at testing the efficiency of the neighbourhood instruments by looking, on the one hand, at the perceptions and feedback from the region vis-a-vis the ENP/EaP instruments and, on the other, at the ways CBC between EU and EaP countries could be improved. ADDED VALUE OF THE RESEARCH: Our project will both collect data from primary and secondary sources and based on our findings will afterwards generate valuable scientific outcomes. From the perspective of the policy-making impact, this project will generate theoretically grounded empirical knowledge about the factors that could further drive in a positive way the EU-EaP states relationship. Such knowledge will help policy-makers both from the EaP and the EU countries across the eastern border to better implement modes of cooperation on ground. IMPACT: The materials will be published both on the project’s website and in hard-copies which will be later sent to libraries and to administrative bodies from the countries part of the network. The data collected and the follow-up publication materials will also considerably contribute to developing new competences and skills of the multinational network members and potentially launch new educational programmes in the network institutions. RESULTS (available soon) COORDINATORS: Gabriela Pascariu, David Rotman, Gabriela Prelipcean

Research.

ENACTED project seeks to a. obtain new research results and novel methodological instruments regarding the EU’s actorness in the region which could be employed in future studies and research and included in teaching activities; b. develop didactic and research competences and create new opportunities in terms of professional development and international cooperation for the academic staff; c. promote new research directions and new educational programmes. To achieve the objectives of the project two directions of application were defined: • Activity R1: Assessing the impact and limits of the EU’s neighbourhood instruments in the eastern borderland regions • Activity R2: Tertiary education in European Studies in the EU’s Eastern borderlands. A cross-country analysis of the multi and interdisciplinary curricula in relation with the stakeholder expectations

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inf

Tertiary education in European Studies in the EU’s Eastern borderlands. A

cross-country analysis of the multi and interdisciplinary curricula in

relation with the stakeholder expectations.

The higher education in the eastern border-countries of the EU has been passing through various transformations since the communist regime had collapsed. The volatility of the educations system has so far harmed the educational process, since none of the universities in the region is ranking in the top 500 worldwide universities (according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014). Moreover, the number of students is decreasing. For instance, Romania is still being far from reaching its target assumed until 2020 (26.7% of population aged 30-34 to have successfully completed tertiary education, as the level reached in 2013 was of only 22.8%). More and more students are already leaving for studies abroad and the return rate to their home countries is low. The brain drain phenomenon and the low tertiary education attainment reflect the low quality of the academic offer. In this process, the education systems of the network’s countries suffer ongoing reorganisations, without a unitary strategic vision. The promotion of the European dimension of tertiary education features the same lack of coherence and vision, reducing the universities’ vision of developing programmes meant to strengthen the knowledge and general or specific competences in different areas of European Studies. For example, the European Studies are not yet to be found in the specialisations inventory; interdisciplinary studies (particular for European Studies) are not yet standardized; the students from other areas than European affairs are not provided with an adequate context of subjects of interest on European themes in their curricula. There are no studies to establish the state of arts in European studies curricula, guidelines regarding the necessary competences on labour market on themes of European integration process. IMPACT: the action will contribute to: gathering information, exchanging practices and building knowledge in tertiary education in European areas studies; offering tools for the increase of expertise of network members in European matters teaching; creation of a favourable framework for the development of network cooperation; providing of analysis and visions on the subject of research for external network actors and policy makers; increasing the expertise and proficiency of universities and ONGs activating in the field in contributing to the promotion of knowledge about integration process and fostering the Europeanisation process in EU Eastern borderlines. RESULTS (available soon) COORDINATORS: Ioan Horga, Ramona Țigănașu