Venäjä- ja rajatutkimuskeskus VERA

Tarkasteltavana ovat yhtäältä Euroopan integraatio ja toisaalta valtion rajojen merkitysten ja vaikutusten muutokset laajemminkin. Keskeisiä tutkimuskohteita ovat Euroopan unionin ulkosuhteet, sen sisä- ja ulkorajoja ylittävä yhteistyö, EU – Venäjä -suhteet sekä eurooppalaisen naapuruuden poliittiset ja alueelliset ulottuvuudet.

Kansainväliset ja globaalit poliittiset prosessit vaikuttavat olennaisesti rajaseutujen kehityskulkuihin. Vaikutusten ymmärtämiseen ja ennakointiin liittyvää tietämystä tarvitaan eritasoisen poliittisen päätöksenteon tueksi.

Osaamisalan vetäjä:

James Scott Professori  Aurora 1143 james.scott@uef.fi  Borders and cross-border co-operation, EU regional policies, EU geopolitics, post-socialist transformation processes, political geography, urban geography and planning

EUBORDERSCAPES - Bordering, Political Landscapes and Social Arenas: Potentials and Challenges of Evolving Border Concepts in a post-Cold War World financed though the EU's 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, is a new international research project that tracks and interprets conceptual change in the study of borders. The total budget of the project, which will run unto May 2016, is 6,9 Million Euros. It is thus a large-scale project and the consortium includes 22 partner institutions from 17 different states, including several non-EU countries.

The EUBORDERSCAPES project will study conceptual change in relation to fundamental social, economic, cultural and geopolitical transformations that have taken place in the past decades. In addition, major paradigmatic shifts in scientific debate, and in the social sciences in particular, will also be considered. State borders are the frame of reference, rather than ethnographic/anthropological boundaries. However, this approach emphasises the social significance and subjectivities of state borders while critically interrogating "objective" categories of state territoriality and international relations. The research proposed here will, furthermore, not only be focused at the more general, at times highly abstract, level of conceptual change. This approach will also allow us to compare and contrast how different and often contested conceptualisations of state borders (in terms of their political, social, cultural and symbolic significance) resonate in concrete contexts at the level of everyday life.
Vastuuhenkilö: James Scott
Homepage

EUBORDERREGIONS – European Regions, EU External Borders and the Immediate Neighbours. Analysing Regional Development Options through Policies and Practices of Cross-Border Co-operation investigates the manifold consequences of increasing cross-border interaction for the development of regions at the EU's external borders and, in this way, contribute to scientific and policy debate on the future of economic, social and territorial cohesion within the EU. Importantly, the project will contextualise development issues in selected EU 'Borderlands' with regard to interaction between the EU and countries of the immediate 'neighbourhood'. As such, these border regions will be treated as interfaces between development dynamics and policy frameworks operating within the EU, on the one hand, and in neighbouring countries, on the other. In doing this, the project will also contribute to the state of the art of policy-oriented research on regional development and cohesion within Europe. 

Vastuuhenkilö: James Scott
Rahoittaja: EU
Yhteistyötahot: Institute for Advanced Studies, Austria; Peipsi Center for Transboundary Cooperation, Estonia; European Institute for Regional and Local Development, Poland; Hungarian Social Science Research Institute, Hungary; Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale-La Sapienza, University of Rome, Italy; FAFO, Norway; University of Thessaly, Greece; Nordregio, Sweden; Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain; Middle East Technical university, Turkey; Centre for Independent Social Research, Russia
Hankkeen kotisivu

EUDIMENSIONS
With the concept generally known as Wider Europe, the European Union has mapped out an ambitious vision of regional "Neighbourhood" that "goes beyond co-operation to involve a significant measure of integration". Furthermore, the EU sees this new quality of regional interaction and partnership as bringing "enormous gains to all involved in terms of increased stability, security and well being".

EUDIMENSIONS seeks to understand the implications of these emerging geopolitical contexts for crossborder co-operation and political relationships between the EU and neighbouring states. More specifically, we will scrutinise the development of a Wider European political community as manifested by co-operation initiatives and changing political discourses that relate communities and groups to each other across national and EU borders. EUDIMENSIONS will perform this task by analysing cooperation processes of civil society organisations and the multilevel contexts within which they operate. Case studies will focus both on specific communities and crossborder co-operation networks that often transcend local, regional and national levels in order to advance their agendas. In terms of substantive cooperation areas the project will focus on regional, social and political development as well as the environmental issues. Particular attention will be paid to social, cultural and gender-related issues that have not received sufficient attention in studies of crossborder co-operation.

Project objectives:
1. To better understand the implications of new European geopolitical contexts for crossborder civil society interaction
2. To analyse civil society co-operation processes, the multilevel contexts within which they operate and the role of the EU in conditioning these relationships within the Neighbourhood
3. To investigate the extent to which meaningful forms of conflict prevention, problem-solving and collective action are emerging at the EU' s new "outer edges"
4. To understand how social knowledge and power can be mobilised as positive resources for regional co-operation and development (e.g. in terms of good practices)
5. To understand how the integrative role of the EU can be enhanced within the wider "Neighbourhood" through discourses, policies and supporting measures
Vastuuhenkilö: James Scott
Hankkeen kotisivu: http://www.eudimensions.eu/   
 

EUCAM Security and Development

The project assesses European security and development policies towards Central Asia and improves the contribution of European programmes to development and welfare in the region. 
The project aims to scrutinise European policies towards Central Asia, enhance knowledge of Europe's engagement with Central Asia, expand the network of experts and institutions from European countries and Central Asian states, and to provide a forum to debate on European-Central Asian relations. The target Countries are: Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. This project will increase awareness of and develop policy recommendations on these and other fields of research.
Tutkimusryhmä: Jeremy Smith, Elmira Satybaldieva, Paul Fryer, Joni Virkkunen
Yhteistyökumppani:Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE)
Rahoittaja: Suomen ulkoministeriö, Wider Europe Initiative / Research and Development
Hankkeen kotisivu