New Horizon Europe Project – InvigoratEU: Preparing Europe for its future has started in January 2024 with the involvement of Jagiellonian University researchers participating in the Future Democracy Lab.
InvigoratEU – a new Horizon Europe project coordinated by the EU-Chair at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) together with the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) in Berlin – will examine how the EU can structure its future relations with its eastern neighbours and the countries of the Western Balkans. The consortium received around three million euros in funding from the EU over the next three years. Its kickoff conference takes place in Tbilisi on 20-21 February 2024 – two years after the start of Russia´s war in Ukraine.
How can the EU strengthen its enlargement and neighborhood policy? Can it ensure Europe's future resilience beyond its borders? The InvigoratEU project aims to answer these questions by bringing together more than 50 researchers from various EU and non-EU countries pursuing three key objectives:
1. New strategies for a strong Europe: In light of a geopolitical turning point, the researchers primarily want to investigate how the enlargement and neighborhood policy needs to be reformed, how to respond to the political, military, and economic ambitions of Russia, China, the US, and Turkey in the Eastern neighborhood and the Western Balkans, and how the EU's foreign policy arsenal needs to be rebuilt to prepare for the new era of military interventions. New data sets will be created - e.g. a public opinion survey, an external influence index, and a social compliance scoreboard.
2. Development of a future-oriented vision: New institutional frameworks will be designed - both for politics and for education in schools and universities. To this end, the researchers are developing scenarios, visions, and strategies and organizing youth labs, workshops for young professionals, and political debates throughout Europe. The aim is for the young Europeans to develop policy recommendations for European and national political actors, which will be presented in Brussels and European capitals at the end of the project.
3. Broad communication of the results: A CDE ("Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation") strategy is central to achieving the project's objective - the recommendations derived from the research findings will be communicated, disseminated, and utilized from day one.
Seven of the 18 members come from Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Western Balkans (North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia). They are complemented by a network of civil society actors with nine representatives from all countries of the Western Balkans, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
The Jagiellonian University contributes to the InvigoratEU Consortium with inputs derived from the ongoing FDL research projects, focused on security, defence, and resilience. FDL WorkPackage 4, taking up the issues of security-driven contexts of democratization and systemic transformation, will provide key deliverables regarding the impact of the EU’s neighbourhood on stability, security, and resilience in the era of military threats and security risks. The research team comprises: Artur Gruszczak (coordinator of the JU team and co-coordinator of Work Package 8), Magdalena Góra, Joanna Dyduch, Agata Mazurkiewicz, Piotr Bajor, and Maciej Stępka.
