1. Dr. Antonios Vlassis from the Centre for International Relations Studies (CEFIR) - presented his research on "Regional organizations, international norms and global governance of culture: the EU foreign policy and the diversity of cultural expressions" during the 56th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (18-21 February 2015) in New Orleans in the United States.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore empirically and qualitatively the links between regional organizations and international norms, by using an institutionalism centered on the actors. It seeks thus to analyze the European Union's capacity to act within the global governance of culture, and in particular its ability to promote the Convention on diversity of cultural expressions (CDCE) beyond the EU.
2. Dr. Michal Natorski - Postdoctoral Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Centre for International Relations Studies (CEFIR) - presented his research on "The practices of the quasi-diplomatic field of international bureaucracies: the relations between the EU and International Organizations in Ukraine" during the 56th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (18-21 February 2015) in New Orleans in the United States. In his paper he scrutinizes the assumption of the EU's leading role in Ukraine in the context of crisis and war in Ukraine. In particular he addresses the role of organizations resources and knowledge in the establishment of local hierarchies between different institutions and traces the networks of interdependencies.
Moreover, he also participated in a round table "How to defend World Politics Against International Relations?" sponsored by the European International Studies Associations. His contribution focused on the dilemmas related to balancing the teaching of academic disciplines with professional skills in the framework of EU studies postgraduate programmes.
3. Ileana Daniela Serban presented his research on "Policy entrepreneurship in the EU transregional cooperation with Latin America".
Abstract: The current paper applies a new approach to the region-to-region dialogue of the European Union with Latin America and the Caribbean. Through the concept of transregionalism, the EU cooperation with the LAC region is explained from the perspective of the common spaces of dialogue created between different sectors, including besides policy makers, the civil society, the business sector, experts and the media. In order to explain how transregionalism is being developed the focus is on the idea of policy entrepreneurship as a base for framing new agendas and discourses. The policy entrepreneurs considered as empirical examples are organisations and not individuals (the EU-LAC Foundation and EuroLat), looking at their different initiatives and at their main successes and limitations. In this way the paper places agency within the transregional discourse of the European Union and links two types of literature, on transregionalism and on policy entrepreneurship.