The Nijmegen Centre for Border Research (NCBR) is a well-established expertise centre that is devoted to the academic research on borders and identities, with a main focus on Europe. The centre was founded in 1998 and currently holds 12 staff members. It is located within the Nijmegen School of Management of the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. The University is one of the leading educational institutions in the Netherlands, with some 17 500 students and 5 500 faculty. Within the NCBR programme, about 12 research staff from various backgrounds, disciplines and nationalities work on a variety of themes, such as transnational territorial cooperation, the role of spatial borders, regional governance in Western and non-Western countries, transnational immigration, territorial identities and territorial conflict.
People in charge of the project:
Prof dr Henk van Houtum: mailto
Rodrigo Bueno Lacey (Msc): mailto
METU was established in 1992 at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. METU is among the first regional research centres established in Turkey and the first with an emphasis on the Black Sea and Central Asian states. Since its establishment, METU has accumulated experience in the development of research projects, organization of workshops and conferences on its region of concern. These activities are conducted by our core and affiliated staff from the departments of sociology, political science, international relations, economics, history, educational sciences, urban and city planning, petroleum engineering, environmental engineering and oceanography of the Middle East Technical University. METU provides consultancy for the private sector and is particularly specialized in development studies and social impact assessment.
People in charge of the project:
Prof. Ayse Ayata, mailto
Assoc. Prof. Ayca Ergun, mailto
The Russian Academy of Sciences was established in 1724 pursuant to the order of the Emperor Peter I by Decree of the Ruling Senate. The Academy was reinstated in 1991 by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation as the supreme scientific institution of Russia. The Principal aim of the Russian Academy of Sciences consists in organization and performance of fundamental researches for the purpose of obtaining further knowledge of the natural, social and human development principles that promote technological, economic, social and cultural development in Russia.
People in charge of the project:
Prof. Vladimir Kolosov, mailto
Dr. Olga Vendina, mailto
Dr. Andrei Herzen, mailto
Dr. Maria Zotova, mailto
Dr. Alexander Sebentsov, mailto
Dr. Anton Gritsenko, mailto
The Department of Geography was established in 1973. Its teaching and research staff comprises more than 100 people. The main research lines are Gender, Migration, Environmental Science and Planning. The Department has a long tradition of academic collaboration with a number of international universities. It holds more than 80 Erasmus exchange agreements with other European Universities. The Geography Department edits the academic journal Documents d’Anàlisi Geogràfica.
People in charge of the project:
Xavier Ferrer-Gallardo, mailto
Abel Albet-Mas, mailto
Núria Claver, mailto
As the world’s northernmost university, UIT has a strong research focus on the Arctic and the North, along with emphasis on global perspectives, indigenous studies, peace studies and comparative studies between North and South.The Dept. of Culture and Literature, responsible for literature, art and document studies within the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, hosts the Border Poetics research group, for the investigation of bordering processes and literary strategies, responsible from 2004 onwards for symposia, courses, web resources, 3 post-docs and a doctoral fellow. At UIT the Border Poetics group cooperates with the Citizenship, Encounters and Place Enactment in the North (CEPIN) research school, the departments for History and for Visual Culture, the Centre for Peace Studies and the Barents Institute (in Kirkenes).
People in charge of the project:
Johan Schimanski, mailto
Stephen Wolfe, mailto
Holger Pötzsch, mailto
The Centre for International Borders Research (CIBR) is an interdisciplinary centre for empirical, comparative and theoretical study of international borders and border regions. Based at Queen's University Belfast, it builds on Ireland's advantages for border study and the research interests of a core group of academic staff from the disciplines of anthropology, geography, political science and sociology.
Professor Liam O'Dowd, email, School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work Founding Director of CIBR and Professor of Sociology, Liam O’Dowd’s research interests and publications include the subject of state borders and border regions in the European Union. Professor O’Dowd led the CIBR input into an EU FP6 project EUDimensions on civil society co-operation across the external borders of the enlarged EU.
Professor Hastings Donnan, email, School of History and Anthropology Professor of Social Anthropology, Hastings Donnan is interested in comparative anthropological approaches to state borders and has carried out ethnographic fieldwork on borders in Ireland and Pakistan, looking particularly at the intersections of nation, ethnicity and religion. His work in Ireland explores the experiences and views of Protestants on both sides of the border, while in Pakistan his research has focused on the line of control in Kashmir that separates Pakistan from India. His research has been funded by the EU, ESRC and the HEA.
Dr Cathal McCall, email, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy. Senior Lecturer in European Studies, Cathal McCall’s research interests include EU involvement in promoting cross-border co-operation to a conflict transformation end in the Irish border region, compared with its approaches to other ‘conflictual cross-border regions’ inside and outside the EU. He leads the CIBR input into the EU FP7 EUBORDERSCAPES project.
Dr Katy Hayward, email, School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work Lecturer in Sociology, Katy Hayward’s research interests include the influence of European integration on cross-border co-operation and peace-building, particularly on the island of Ireland. She was previously a Research Fellow on the EU FP5 EUBorderConf project on the EU and border conflicts.
The Department of Politics and Government focuses on core areas of political science such as Comparative Politics, International Relations and Political Theory as well as study areas touching on neighbouring disciplines, such as Political Sociology, Political Geography and Geopolitics and Political History of the Twentieth century. The Department of Politics and Government works closely with the Centre for European Studies a multidisciplinary centre that “Defines Europe in its broadest geographical context, while focusing on Western Europe and the European Union.” Emphasis will be on elements that affect the Israel-European relationship, particularly in fields such as citizenship, identity and civil society, foreign policy and security. The Centre will be headed by Dr. Joel Peters, from the Department of Politics and Government. Recently, the department participated in the FP5 Project “EUBORDCONF”, coordinated by Thomas Diez of Birmingham University (contract number: HPSE-CT- 2002-00106)
People in charge of the project:
David Newman, mailto
Founded in 1965, the University of Umeå is one of the largest research and teaching units in Northern Sweden. The university has prioritised twelve research environments as "Areas of Excellence" including Gender studies, Northern studies, and Social welfare research, Umeå University has a long tradition of womens’s and gender studies. Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS) is an interdisciplinary centre responsible for gender research and is one of three research environments in Sweden appointed as a Centre of Gender Excellence by the Swedish Research Council. The centre is one of Umeå University’s most expansive units, and the workforce has more than doubled between 2008, the year that the unit was founded, and 2010 (from about 12 employees to 30).
The University of Bergamo was funded in 1968. Nowadays, the University of Bergamo, thanks to its constant drive for the renewal and broadening of its structures and of the courses that it offers, consists of six faculties (Economics; Educational Studies; Engineering; Foreign Languages and Literatures; Humanities; Law). The strengths of the University of Bergamo are the wide range of courses offered (also through E-learning projects), the excellent use of the numerous laboratories available to students, the ambitious research centres, and, last but not least, the fact that the University operates in one of the most dynamic of the Italian areas, from both a cultural and an economic viewpoint.
The Centre of Research on the Complexity (Ce.R.Co) promotes interdisciplinary research in the field of anthropology and epistemology of human and natural complexity and constitutes a relevant scientific reality at the University of Bergamo. Distinctive feature of the Centre is that the goal is to examine productively the intersections of social, human and natural sciences by providing an adequate theoretical, methodological and critical approach based on the scientific background of the studies in complexity. Major research foci are: epistemology, geopolitics and anthropology of borders and of urban spaces; globalisation and complexity; transnational migration and post-colonialism; ethnic, national, cultural and linguistic identities; borders representation and perception; anthropology of the contemporary; epistemology of geopolitics; epistemology and sciences of complexity.
Ce.R.Co has developed an interesting scientific and cultural cooperation with Italian universities as well as with international institutions. In particular, the Centre has established a scientific and cultural cooperation with the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research (NCBR) – The Netherlands.
People in charge of the project:
Chiara Brambilla: mailto
Gianluca Bocchi: mailto
Address:
Centro di Ricerca sulla Complessità (Ce.R.Co)
Università degli Studi di Bergamo
via Salvecchio
19 24129 - Bergamo - Città alta
Phone: 0039 035 2052236, Fax: 0039 035 2052221
Email: cerco(at)unibg.it
The Department of Economic Geography has a long tradition of participating in European research projects dealing with regional development issues, cross-border co-operation and “Post-Socialist transformation” in Central and Eastern Europe, The research of the Department focuses on: Urban sustainable development, Regional development and new forms of regional policy, social and economic transformation in post-socialist countries, quality of life in urban areas, cultural landscapes and the role of cultural heritage in local development.
People in charge of the project:
Iwona Sagan, mailto
Katarzyna Barańczuk, mailto
Since its establishment in 1804, V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University has become one of the main educational and research universities in Ukraine. The university has 20 schools and 125
departments as well as several research institutes with wide international reputation. The most known institutes of social sciences at the university are Department of Applied Sociology and Kharkov Centre for Gender Studies. The university has participated in several EU-funded research projects.
People in charge of the project:
Olga Filippova, mailto
Volodymyr Kravchenko, mailto
Gelinada Grinchenko, mailto
The Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS) is an independent non-profit institution for the promotion of excellent scholarship and academic cooperation. It aims to attract young talent as well as outstanding senior scholars by offering institutional conditions conducive to innovative research, intellectual creativity and dialogue, thereby supporting the formation of new regional elites. Through its strong interdisciplinary and international orientation it seeks to integrate national and regional scholarship in cross-cultural research on pan-European and global scale. CAS’ principal emphasis in research is in two main areas: 1) History, culture and development of regions in a comparative European perspective (common legacies, developmental and societal problems, cultural and economic exchange, questions of identity, etc.); and 2) Improvement of higher education and academic research in the region and further abroad. For more information on CAS experience, pls. see www.cas.bg
People in charge of the project:
Mishkova, mailto
Nikolay Kutsev, mailto
Anna Krasteva, mailto
The Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS), Erkner is a publicly funded research institute of the Leibniz Science Association, which specialises in urban and regional development. Its interdisciplinary research teams analyse and assess socio-economic, environmental and political developments and their management at a local and regional level. It has a long established track record of researching into, and advising stakeholders on European regionalisation and bordering, regional governance, cross-border place-making, space-related communication and image building, and other issues related to the social construction of space. It has worked within the ESPON network, contributing a series of original projects. IRS also coordinated the FP 6 border research project EUDIMENSIONS (2006-2009)The IRS brings to the proposed project four experienced project managers and researchers (see below), a back-up staff of ca. 25 researchers and 30 non-research staff as well as considerable administrative and considerable technical resources.
People in charge of the project:
Hans-Joachim Bürkner, mailto
Heidi Fichter-Wolf, mailto
CEPS/INSTEAD is a multi-disciplinary public research centre founded in 1978. With a staff of around 140, CEPS/INSTEAD is a major research institution in social sciences in Luxembourg. Its research activities are polarized around three core themes: Population and Employment, Geography and Spatial Planning, and Enterprises and Industrial Organizations. The Department of Geography is composed of 27 geographers who have developed particular expertise in the field of cross-border integration in Europe. Areas of interest include: the functional and institutional dynamics of cross-border metropolitan areas, the role of national borders in differentiating political, economic and cultural systems, and their new importance as interfaces for promoting exchanges, co-operation, and economic competitiveness.
People in charge of the project:
Christophe Sohn, mailto
Olivier Walther, mailto
Frédéric Durand, mailto
The joint research unit of the Université Joseph Fourier (UJF) and the Centre Nationale de la Récherche Scientifique PACTE-Territoires specialises in territorial governance issues and border regions. UJF is itself one of Europe's leading universities. It offers its students high-quality education, providing them with a passport to the professional world. The university has acquired this international status through the quality of its teaching and the excellence of its research, much of which takes place in collaboration with major international and national organisations. UJF works with numerous European partners and is fully committed to the integration of higher education and research at a European level. UJF is at the cutting edge of social and environmental sciences with a very strong cluster in Human Geography.
In this program, UMR PACTE is reinforced by scholars from other universities and laboratories (University of Limoges and UMR 6042 GEOLAB CNRS, EA. Habiter (University of Reims), University of Genève, and Centre Thucydide of the University Paris-Panthéon-Assas).
People in charge of the project:
Anne-Laure Amilhat-Szary, malto
Stéphane Rosière, mailto
The Centre for Regional Studies is nation-wide research network of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Research activities focus on regional and social development in Hungary and Europe and central governance problems associated with them. CRS is a multidisciplinary organisation that brings together, economists, geographers, political scientists, sociologists and legal experts Besides carrying out basic and applied research, the institute is an active participant in the local higher education.
People in charge of the project:
Zoltán Hajdú, mailto
Katalin Süle, mailto
Sándor Kovács, mailto
Éva Szárazi, mailto
The Centre for Independent Social Research was founded in 1991 as an independent research institute. CISR's fundamental goal is to develop academic social research. The position that CISR occupies in the sociological community is connected with the organisation's methodological preferences: CISR's researchers are primarily guided by qualitative sociological methodology. Today CISR scholars mostly conduct academic sociological research in the following areas: Ethnicity, migration, nationalism; Border studies; Gender studies; Social Studies of Economy, Social Milieu and Social Structure; Environmental Sociology; Cultural and Symbolic production. Up to 40-50 projects are conducted annually, most of them in cooperation with specialists from all over Russia and abroad; more than 100 articles in Russian and international journals are annually published by CISR 30 academic employees.
People in charge of the project:
Elena Nikiforova, mailto cisr, or mailto bk.ru
Olga Brednikova, mailto cisr, or mailto yandex.ru
Olga Tkach, mailto cisr, or mailto mail.ru
The Department of World Cultures is one of the largest departments of the Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki. The research is primarily directed towards cultural and linguistic diversity, intercultural interaction, area and cultural research, global history, comparative religion and concept history. At the Centre of Nordic Studies of the department, scholars use conceptual history perspective the analyses of politics and social life acknowledge the fact that a decisive part of the remodelling of political and social structures consists of rhetorical moves. Founded in 1640, the University of Helsinki is the oldest and most prestigious university in Finland. The university, the department and the researchers from the Centre of Nordic Studies have participated and coordinated numerous international projects of conceptual history.
People in charge of the project:
Henk Stenius, mailto
The University of Eastern Finland is a multidisciplinary university, which offers teaching in more than 100 major subjects. With approximately 15,000 students and 2,800 members of staff, the UEF is one of the largest universities in Finland. The university’s campuses are located in Joensuu, Kuopio and Savonlinna.
The Karelian Institute (established in 1971) is a social science and regional research unit of the University of Eastern Finland. Research activity in the Social Sciences derives its orientation from the University's location within a sparsely populated northern periphery, close to the Russian border. The Social Science Department has the focus on the following four main fields: European Spatial Development; Changing Peripheries (rural research, regional economic research, studies of labour markets and unemployment); Identity and Power (ethnic relations and politics and civil society); and Russia and Borders.
Foreign Languages and Translation Studies at the University of Eastern Finland has a staff of ca. 65 full-time university teachers and researchers teaching courses in modern languages, cultures and translation. Now part of the School of Humanities at the newly found Philosophical Faculty, it is the only University department in Eastern Finland offering degrees in the Humanities. The Department has been in charge of several major research projects (funded by the Academy of Finland) and hosts regularly international and national conferences.
People in charge of the project:
James W. Scott: mailto
Jussi Laine: mailto
Ilkka Liikanen: mailto
Jopi Nyman: mailto