If you want to know how Irish central government manages its EU business, ask Brigid Laffan. The UCD professor has recently completed a research paper on the issue. The project, which took two years to complete, compares Ireland with Finland and the Netherlands. How do we rate? "Very good on negotiation, less so on strategy," comments Laffan, who is Jean Monet professor of European politics. "Our public policy system needs strengthening and I'm making some recommendations."
Laffan is also director of UCD's Dublin European Institute, which is due to be formally launched next week. UCD's 1998 designation as a Jean Monet Centre for Excellence in European Studies encouraged the college to establish the institute last year, says Laffan. The university boasts six Jean Monet professors. These full-time posts, which are co-funded by the EU for three years, are devoted to the teaching of European integration. The new institute is a postgraduate facility for the study of European integration and wider Europe issues. "We don't have a narrow focus on the EU. We're looking at Europe from political, historical and cultural perspectives," Laffan says. But why set up an institute? "UCD has enormous strengths in arts, law and commerce, but without an institutional focus, it's difficult to get people from different faculties to work together," she says.
The institute, which offers two postgraduate programmes and a structured PhD, provides a platform for all of UCD's six Monet professors - in the fields of law, economics, politics, social policy and European studies - to come together. "We're hoping to embark on inter-disciplinary research projects and bid for some large EU projects," she explains. "A lot of our work on the EU involves international teams. It's easier to make bids and participate in trans-national collaborations if you're part of an institute. It brings people out of their own departments and allows for more dialogue and increases the amount of interdisciplinary contact on research.
Some 40 students are currently studying on the two master's programmes - in economic science, European economic and public affairs and in European studies. A structured PhD programme - which includes some taught courses - has just begun. The programme's first student is examining the EU's foreign and security policies. The focus of the master's in economics programme, which covers business, economics, law and politics, is on European integration. "Europe is important legally, economically and politically," says Laffan. "There's a need in business and in the public sector for people with a knowledge of the EU and how it works." Last year, she says, most of the course's graduates went into either business or the public service.
The institute's second master's in European studies is a broader programme dealing with Europe's historical, linguistic and cultural diversity. It involves a range of disciplines and departments including classics, economics, geography, history, languages, library and information system, linguistics, politics and social policy. This course attracts a significant number of overseas students - from Europe, the US and Australia. For the future, Laffin hopes to attract students from eastern Europe.
In November, students on the two master's programmes will be linked via video with students from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the US. One session will be lead by Laffan, the other by a Pittsburgh lecturer. Meanwhile, Laffan's recently published a book, Europe's Experimental Union, co-authored by Rory O'Donnell, gives the EU the thumbs up. You just have to look at the history of Europe to know that the current experiment is a resounding success, she says.
