List of Themed Tracks

1. Beyond The East West Divide: EU Strategic Autonomy
Convenors: Julia Rone, Eli Gateva, Emilija Tudzarovska

The track welcomes contributions that explore how the turn to EU strategic autonomy deepens or helps overcome the East-West divide in the EU. We are interested in how novel industrial and regulatory initiatives in the fields of defence, information technologies and trade are being developed, implemented and contested across the EU, with a focus on the importance of CEE actors in these developments. We expect in-depth empirical analyses of cross-country coalition patterns, intergovernmental negotiations, and civil society and business mobilisations to shape "EU strategic autonomy". Ultimately, the track seeks to illuminate how the pursuit of strategic autonomy reconfigures hierarchies, dependencies and solidarities between Europe’s East and West.

 

2. Blurring the Boundaries of Sanctions in the EU and Beyond
Convenors: Raquel Cardoso, António Vaz de Castro

Sanctions used to be linked to their function, consequences and specific safeguards. In an effort to effectively combat unlawful activities, strategies have been expanded to target unwanted behaviour, e.g. confiscation, asset freezes or restrictive measures. This appears to have given rise to a European sanctions regime that is increasingly disinterested in its connection to unlawful acts: sanctions are being traded for measures intended to facilitate cooperation and restrict behaviour. This raises the question of which safeguards to apply and whether standards are lowering. This track aims to explore sanctions in Europe, covering evolution, cross-influences, motivations and legitimacy. Contributions from law, criminology, international relations and sociology are particularly welcome.

 

3. Constructing Europe through Everyday Practice – Rights, Politics and Society
Convenors: Dagmar Schiek, Mary Naughton, Katerina Orfanidi

While institutional Europe – Member States, EU Judges and their policies – trigger Euroscepticism, a silent evolution of everyday Europe remains under the radar of Europeanisation studies. Investigating the construction of European society, or the creating of ever closer union of peoples (Article 1 TEU), we understand Europe as the people’s union. This implicates the citizenry and their relationships with one another, with the European polity and its norms. How is Europe interacted with, interpreted and enacted by its peoples at the level of the home, the workplace, the community? How do European policies shape everyday practices? What relationships do European programmes enable and encourage? Is using EU-generated rights becoming a common practice? Calling for papers from all disciplines!

 

4. EU Digital Policy in a Changing World
Convenors: Sebastian Heidebrecht, Xuenchen Chen, Xinchuchu Gao

The digitalisation of societies poses opportunities and challenges for the EU. They promise greater freedom, connectivity and efficiency, but raise concerns about surveillance, online harm and disinformation. This track invites contributions on the multifaceted dimensions of EU digital policy. Papers may address: a) the interplay between online platforms, populism, diversity, accountability and inclusion; b) policy processes and actors, like the role of EU institutions, member states and interest groups; c) the international role of the EU, including digital sovereignty, strategic autonomy and the EU’s role in global digital governance; d) the implementation and enforcement of EU law, like in the regulation of Big Tech and the insurance of data protection.

 

5. EU Relations with the Global Souths: Repair, Resistance, Reworlding Beyond Coloniality
Convenors: Antonio Salvador M. Alcazar, Rahel W. Sebhatu

The decolonial turn has crossed European Studies (ES). Recent scholarship has critiqued how the EU circumscribes the Global Souths in coloniality. We call to move decolonial critique in ES towards pluriversal, relational and socially engaged praxis enacting all manners of breaks, ruptures and subversions that agitate, and (hope to) exist outside, colonial-modern-racialised-capitalist-patriarchal relations of power. Grounded in epistemologies from and for the Global Souths, our track asks: How do we repair, resist and reworld the EU’s colonial/modern relations with the Global Souths? Outside the eurocentred disciplinary borders of ES, we welcome contributions entangled with(in) and accountable to struggles for liberation from the coloniality of power, being, knowledge, gender and nature.

 

6. European Security
Convenors: Jocelyn Mawdsley, Laura Chappell, Anna Molnar

The European security environment has worsened considerably since 2022. National, EU and NATO security threat perceptions and planning processes have been fundamentally challenged by the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The challenge for all actors is that their policies, strategies and financial priorities were conceived to function in conditions of peace, not against a backdrop of a major, industrialised war, where continuing threats against EU and NATO members are being made, and the consequences of security dependency on the US are increasingly problematic. We welcome papers addressing all aspects of European security from any theoretical perspective.

 

7. Gender & Sexuality
Convenors: UACES Gender and Sexuality Track Committee

UACES invites both panel and individual paper proposals for inclusion on to its Gender and Sexuality track. We are keen on developing a space for feminist and queer approaches to European Studies (broadly defined), and welcome multi-disciplinary scholarly approaches within European Studies, whether political, historical, legal or sociological. Proposals may be conceptual, empirical, critical or applied. We are interested in a broad range of substantive topics that focus on different aspects of gender, women, sexuality, gender identity etc within Europe, or those working on feminist and/or queer approaches to European Studies more broadly. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The growing importance of gender and/or sexual diversity for representation within the European institutions, policy debates and the impact of policy initiatives on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities in Europe
• The discourse of women and LGBTQIA+ actors in European politics and civil society movements
• The role of Europe in mitigating gender-based violence or promoting gender equality at home or abroad
• The role of masculinities in European politics and discourses
• Gender/sexuality approaches to the Far Right
• Anti-gender campaigns in Europe
• LGBTQ politics
• Pride Parades
• Identity politics
• Gendered/Queer perspectives on key topics in European and EU studies

We especially welcome contributions from an intersectional perspective, as well as abstracts from scholars who have traditionally felt less included in European Studies. We are committed to offering a diverse range of panels and would be especially delighted to welcome scholars from the global majority. We expect for any proposed, pre-formed panels to consider offering a diverse range of voices as part of their own selection.

 

8. Health and the European Union
Convenors: Mary Guy, Charlotte Godziewski

Health remains high on the political agenda at EU level, with health and AI, and global health being highlighted as important in von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union address. The current Commission focus on competitiveness encompasses aspects of health, notably pharmaceuticals.

‘Health and the European Union’ offers a forum for presenting work at all career stages from across diverse disciplines and methodologies which engages with how EU activity shapes and is shaped by health.

We are open to hosting both in-person and virtual sessions, and both traditional panel presentations and interactive workshops.

 

9. Learning & Teaching
Convenor: Simon Usherwood

European Studies has long been a progressive area for Learning & Teaching, making use of its diverse constituent disciplines and wide range of subject matter to develop innovative, engaging and effective strategies and practices in the classroom. This track welcomes papers, panels, roundtables and non-standard formats that showcase innovative teaching methods, build student participation and learning, and reflect on the development of European Studies as a field of pedagogic practice. Submissions that follow non-standard formats – games, workshops, etc. – are particularly encouraged.

Topics may include:

• Active learning in European Studies
• Managing and making the most of interdisciplinarity
• Adapting and responding to the emergence of generative AI in the classroom
• Building rigour in assessment
• Online, hybrid and blended learning spaces
• Embedding EDI in European Studies’ curricula
• Future-proofing European Studies for our students’ needs and aspirations
• Engaging with partners beyond the university in delivering effective and impactful learning
• Experiences of being a teacher of European Studies

 

10. Migration in Policy and Practice: Intersectionality, Gender, and Global Belonging
Convenors: Raquel Cardoso, Gabriela Borges, Malgorzata Kulakowska, Magdalena Lesinska

Migration has become a deeply politicised issue, driven by emotion and misinformation rather than evidence. This track explores the phenomenon of migration at two main levels: the creation of state policies and the consequences experienced by migrants themselves. Regarding the former, the panels will provide an opportunity to discuss relevant policies and their social, political and economic impact, as well as the factors that determine them, such as public preferences, perceptions or conflicts. Regarding the latter, we aim to include both economic migrants and refugees, paying special attention to refugee women, whose experiences reveal the gendered dimensions of displacement, protection and integration.

We invite interdisciplinary contributions from multiple fields of knowledge examining how law, policy and public discourse shape, and are shaped, by the reality on the ground. We are interested in national and supranational case studies, comparative research, legal analysis, data and qualitative analysis, among others. By foregrounding public policy, gender, agency and intersectionality, this track seeks to advance nuanced understandings of migration and belonging within the evolving European and global context.

 

11. Quo Vaditis Critical European Studies—New Approaches and Visions
Convenors: Evangelos Fanoulis, Senka Neuman-Stanivukovic

Europe stands at a crucial crossroads, making methodological and theoretical questions in critical European studies more urgent than ever. This track invites contributions that rethink the discipline’s epistemic foundations, test experimental and critical methodologies, and interrogate how we study and know “Europe”. We welcome papers addressing, among other issues, the duality of Europe (EU/Europe), the politics of knowledge production and the limits and possibilities of critique as method, theory and political engagement, as well as contributions that explore alternative conceptual lenses, challenge dominant narratives or propose innovative ways of understanding Europe’s evolving political, social and global dynamics.

 

12. Regulatory Governance, Competition, and the Boundaries of European Integration
Convenors: Tomoyuki Hashimoto, Dominik Wolski, Maik Huettinger

This track explores how competition law and instruments of economic governance—such as financial regulation, fiscal rules, industrial policy and digital market legislation—interact to shape the evolving architecture of the EU single market. While both domains are integral to European integration, they increasingly operate in tension: promoting market openness on one hand, while enabling strategic intervention and state-led initiatives on the other. The regulatory landscape is further complicated by new legal instruments such as the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act and the AI Act, alongside evolving frameworks like the Capital Markets Union and the Banking Union.

Papers are invited that examine how these overlapping frameworks are interpreted, implemented and contested across sectors and member states. How do national actors navigate and reshape EU legal frameworks in light of domestic priorities or economic pressures? To what extent do these regimes reinforce or undermine integration? We particularly welcome contributions that address the shifting balance between supranational regulation and national discretion, as well as the broader implications for institutional adaptation, policy coherence and political contestation. Interdisciplinary perspectives from law, political economy, EU studies and public administration are encouraged.

 

13. Reimagining the EU as a Global Development Actor in a New Global Order
Convenors: Sebastian Steingass, María Santillán O’Shea, Simon Lightfoot, Niels Keijzer, Ondřej Horký-Hlucháň, Balázs Szent-Iványi

The track focuses on the role of the EU as a development actor in a world where aid and development policy are reimagined and contested. We explore the future for the EU model of partnership and the EU’s role for “traditional” global aid and development norms around the following themes:

• Global Gateway and European development finance institutions
• Models of EU partnership and increasing bilateralisation of relationships
• Perceptions of the EU as a global actor
• Member states and their development cooperation policies and budgets
• Non-state actors in EU development policy
• The EU and the post-2030 agenda
• Case studies of changing EU development policy with partner countries
• Policy nexuses with trade, migration, climate etc.

 

14. Sectoral Challenges for the Implementation of the Green Agenda in Europe
Convenors: Rosa Fernandez Martin, Blanca Marabani, Valeria Fappani

In a context influenced by external pressures such as threats of trade wars, and internal pressures created by the dominance of right-wing parties more reluctant to a green transition, this track aims to explore how the climate of regulatory uncertainty can influence the efforts that different sectors and industries are pursuing towards more sustainable pathways. The recent Omnibus packages approved by the European Commission roll back the latest initiatives to increase business accountability through sustainability and due diligence reporting obligations, under a new narrative that focuses on economic growth and competitiveness.

Contributions are invited to discuss the challenges that different sectors and industries face when attempting the adaptation to greener policies and regulations, particularly now that the EU has left in the hands of Member States the development of some of the relevant frameworks, removing its competence to develop sector-specific standards. Questions that we aim to answer include but are not limited to: If the EU loses its role of sustainability policy entrepreneur, can individual Member States take the lead? Who are the beneficiaries of the so-called 'simplification' packages? Could specific actors, institutions or sectors lead the move back to the ambitious sustainability agenda pontificated by the European Green Deal?

 

15. Trade Policy Transformations Amidst Global Challenges
Convenors: Maria Garcia, Gesa Kubek, Sangeeta Khorana

EU trade policy is undergoing a paradigm shift, driven by the intersection of security, climate transformation and domestic and international contestation. These pressures challenge the coherence of the EU’s external economic strategy and its impact at a time when the EU is seeking to mobilise its trade power more strategically to address global challenges.

This panel welcomes contributions from diverse methodological and theoretical perspectives exploring, among others:

• Trade and climate change/gender/inclusivity/human rights/sustainability/development/digital divide
• Trade and power/resilience/technology and digital sovereignty
• Implications of new dynamics on relations with developed and developing states
• Implications on EU ambitions to shape global rules and lead in sustainable development

 

16. Open Track
Convenor: Filiz Dogan

The Open Track welcomes proposals on all aspects of contemporary European Studies from across academic disciplines including (but not limited to) law, economics, geography, history, sociology, public policy and politics. We accept proposals from established academics, practitioners and well-prepared doctoral students. Proposals can take the form of panels, individual papers or 'non-traditional' panels which may be roundtables, workshops or other alternative formats. We will not accept all-male panels.