Research Highlights

I. Hylke Dijkstra has acquired an ERC Starting Grant to study the decline and death of international organisations

Hylke Dijkstra has been awarded a prestigious 1.5 million euro ERC Starting Grant to analyse the decline and death of international organisations. It allows him to put together a research team with a PostDoc and three PhD candidates. The project will last five years (2019-2023).

How is it possible that international organisations at a certain point lose some of their competences or even are abolished by member states? Hylke Dijkstra plans to research this issue over the next five years. In doing so, he will elaborate on previous research that demonstrates how such organisations emerge and develop. However, very little is known about decline and dissolution. Thanks to this ERC grant, Dijkstra can expand his scientific research in the coming years and put together his own research group.

“A third of the international organisations that emerged last century have been formally dissolved,” says Dijkstra. “Organisations like NATO, UNESCO and the World Trade Organisation are also under threat. And look at the EU, with its forthcoming Brexit. Other international organisations seem to be doing well. Why is this? To find out, I will explore the institutional qualities of these organisations.”

Further information: http://www.nestior.eu


II. Aneta Spendzharova, Anna Herranz Surrallés, Johan Adriaensen and Sophie Vanhoonacker establish new Jean Monnet Research Network

Aneta Spendzharova, Anna Herranz Surrallés, Johan Adriaensen and Sophie Vanhoonacker were successful in securing €300.000 of EU funding to establish a new Jean Monnet Research Network. The Network aims to revitalise the study of EU Single Market Integration in a turbulent age (VISTA). It brings together a diverse group of academic partners (Universities of Frankfurt, Bristol, Tartu and Kyiv) and two think tanks (IAI-Rome & CEPS- Brussels).

The network, coordinated by Maastricht, seeks to promote new research and teaching on contemporary developments of the single market in the areas of defence, the digital market, finance and energy. It does so through the creation of new courses at the involved universities, the publication of policy papers and special training through the participating think tanks, and joint publications in academic journals. These deliverables are developed over a series of yearly conferences and workshops, international exchanges, and focused research.