SHAPEDEM-EU sets out to rethink, reshape, and review the EU’s democracy support policies in its Eastern & Southern Neighbourhoods. Amidst the increasing contestation of the EU and the weakening impact of its policies in the Neighbourhoods, SHAPEDEM-EU applies an entirely novel approach to democracy support. The approach conceives of democracy support as a social practice requiring the collective democratic learning of all stakeholders involved. The consortium will pilot test a Democracy Learning Loop to create new channels and tools for interaction between the EU and its neighbours and transfer these findings into policy recommendations for an improved EU policy toolkit. SHAPEDEM-EU represents a multi-national and multifaceted research consortium of academic, think tank, and civil society institutions based in the EU and the Southern and Eastern Neighbourhoods. The consortium will apply mixed-methods to collect, assess, and generate policies related to democracy support in the six case countries of Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia. We will investigate the role of EU member states, key EU institutions, third country actors, and international organisations. The project results will lead to improved EU practices in the region. In all project phases, the impact of gender equality & digital transformations in democracy support will be examined. The findings will be communicated and disseminated through SHAPEDEM-EU’s comprehensive Democracy Support Database and an online Digital Dashboard. Our results will contribute to the creation of sustainable tools for an EU policy toolkit that supports democracy in its Southern & Eastern Neighbourhoods, thus increasing the EU’s accountability, transparency, effectiveness, and trustworthiness and making neighbourhood countries more resilient, equitable, and responsive to local needs.

The ENGAGE (“Envisioning a New Governance Architecture for a Global Europe”) project will advance the goals that are aligned with the European Commission’s push to have a stronger and more united European voice in the world. ENGAGE will answer how the EU can effectively and sustainably harness all of its tools in a joined-up external action, with an eye to meeting key strategic challenges and becoming a stronger global actor. Our contribution to this ambitious quest will be anchored to a comprehensive and detailed analysis of all dimensions of EU external action, which will go even beyond the call’s requirements. ENGAGE brings together a consortium that provides first-class academic expertise of European and international scholars who cover the entire scope of the EU’s external action, involving many practitioners with vast experience in relevant governmental bodies. Our project will be based on 11 Work Packages (WPs). Two initial WPs will provide an analytical grip on the contextual hurdles, both international and domestic, that the EU faces in the implementation of its external policy. This will in turn inform the other core research WPs of ENGAGE, which are divided into two interconnected clusters. The first cluster will aim to revamp the governance architecture of CSDP, CFSP as a whole, and other dimensions of EU external action (including peripheral and sectoral diplomacies), while the second cluster will aim to improve the performance of the EU’s external action when engaging with strategic partners, its neighbourhood and conflict scenarios. The contextual WPs and the two clusters will converge in a strategic WP – the cornerstone of ENGAGE – that will produce a White Paper for Joined-up, Coherent, Sustainable, and Effective External Action. All of ENGAGE’s deliverables and recommendations will be targeted at policymakers across the EU, and seek to spark an inclusive and representative EU-wide conversation.

Two risks characterize the European Union’s (EU) regional and global security environments, 1) areas of limited statehood (ALS) in the EU’s East and South, in which central government authorities are too weak to enforce rules and/or do not control the monopoly over the means of violence; 2) contested orders (CO), in which various actors challenge the rules according to which societies and political systems are and should be organized. EU-LISTCO will investigate, first, under which conditions ALS/CO deteriorate into governance breakdown and violent conflict, turning risks into security threats for Europe. By combining risk scanning and foresight methodologies with comparative case studies, we will identify the tipping points at which risks turn into threats, and how they might be better anticipated. We will also investigate how global and diffuse threats affect tipping points as well as the sources of resilience in ALS/CO that can be leveraged from the outside. Second, EU-LISTCO will investigate how the preparedness of the EU and its member states can be strengthened to anticipate, prevent, and respond to threats of governance breakdown and violent conflict and to foster resilience in ALS/CO. In particular, we will examine the strategies, capacities, and policy instruments of EU institutions and selected member states, with a focus on the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty and the implementation of the EU Global Strategy. A new methodology for knowledge exchange between academia and foreign policy will assist EU-LISTCO to achieve its policy objectives. EU-LISTCO encompasses a unique consortium of universities and think tanks in close cooperation with the European External Action Service as well as the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of France, Germany, and Italy. This knowledge exchange will take place continuously allowing scholars to incorporate concrete policy challenges in their research and enabling policy practitioners to pursue research-based policies.

“HOW CAN THE EU INVIGORATE ITS ENLARGEMENT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY TO ENHANCE EUROPE’S RESILIENCE?”. InvigoratEU aims at finding answers to this question by pursuing three overarching goals: Our first goal is (1) to investigate HOW TO REFORM the EU’s enlargement strategy in a new geopolitical phase, HOW TO RESPOND to other actors’ geopolitical ambitions in the Eastern Neighbourhood and Western Balkans, and HOW TO REBUILD the EU’s foreign policy arsenal in view of a new era of military threats (triple “R” approach) combining the modernisation and geopolitical logics of EU enlargement, leading to new data – e.g. a public opinion survey in Ukraine, a set of scenarios, an external influence index (Russia, China, Turkey), and a social policy compliance and cohesion scoreboard. Our second goal is (2) to elaborate an EVIDENCE-BASED, FORWARD-LOOKING VISION FOR THE EU’s POLITICAL AGENDA AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS FOR CO-DESIGNING A MULTIDIMENSIONAL TOOLBOX (i.e. two tailor-made toolkits), together with InvigoratEU´s Expert Hub, Civil Society (CS) Network, Youth Labs, Workshops for Young Professionals and Policy Debates in a gaming set up, which will result in context-sensitive and actionable policy recommendations for European and national political stakeholders and (young) European citizens in particular. Our third goal is (3) to deploy a CDE (communication, dissemination and exploitation) strategy AIMING AT RECOMMENDATIONS FROM DAY 1 to maximize our scientific, policy and societal impact in invigorating the EU´s enlargement and neighbourhood policies to enhance Europe´s resilience. ULTIMATELY, INVIGORATEU IS A DELIBERATELY LARGE CONSORTIUM respecting THE DIVERSITY OF EUROPE and POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES; 7 out of 18 are from GEORGIA, MOLDOVA, UKRAINE, and the Western Balkans (NORTH MACEDONIA, MONTENEGRO, SERBIA), COMPLEMENTED BY our CS Network of 9 representatives from all Western Balkan countries, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.