Carte de l'Europe sur fond d'empreinte digitale (décembre 1989)

The project ‘Initiative and constraint in the mapping of evolving European borders', funded by the award of a Jean Monnet Action through the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU's Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), is devoted to the analysis of voluntarism v. determinism as key factors in border creation and evolution and as parameters in prospective border studies, focusing on the specific case of contemporary Europe. The results of this research project lead to the drafting of policy recommendations to guarantee constructive European neighbourhood relations as well as the establishment of a more thoughtful, integrative and ‘border-sensitive' EU external communication policy. In this sense, the project starts from the premise that an in-depth interdisciplinary critical analysis of the active role of borders in shaping European policy-making is particularly urgent in order to offer tangible and comprehensive solutions to the challenges of past and future enlargements and for the consolidation of a fruitful and proactive external role for the EU in an increasingly interdependent world.

Project objectives

• Building a quality reference for research and didactic purposes on the subject of ‘Initiative and constraint in the mapping of evolving European borders'. Access to this resource will be facilitated by the digital nature of its development and consultation features. Both the resulting digital research corpus and the subject file will be published in the CVCE website.
• Helping to shed light on new approaches and lines of research regarding the project theme, thus enhancing the valorisation possibilities for the project research results created by a highly active international network of eminent experts.
• Assembling unique documents from geographically dispersed archives and revealing their interconnections by comparing and examining them in detail within the thematic WPs and research areas of the project.
• Bridging research and European policy-making by deepening and disseminating analysis that is sensitive to border issues.
• Setting up a systematic bibliography of secondary sources regarding the main project themes.

Project Manager: Cristina Blanco Sío-López