Activities of this project can be divided in three clusters:
1) Aiming for academic excellence with the publication of a special issue in a leading European integration journal
2) Engaging with civil society in order to disseminate experiences and knowledge in a mutual-learning process.
3) Building up of a sustainable impact of this one-year information and research activity.
In order to prepare this special issue, a workshop was organized at the premises of Grootseminarie in Bruges on 11 and 12 January 2010. The workshop lasted for two days, during which the special issue was prepared with the presentation and discussion of several draft articles.
The most important event of this project was a civil society seminar organized in September 2010.
By analyzing the exportability of the EU experience and its model, the project also focused on the increasing importance that is given by the EU and the wider policy world to the promotion of regional integration outside Europe. So the project involved civil society to discuss on this issue during a conference organized on 10 September 2010 in Brussels at the University Foundation. The event was attended by more than 75 people: academics, journalists, students, representatives from civil society, EU institutions and national governments. This conference was co-organised with the think tanks Notre Europe and the Egmont Institute. Additional support was provided by the EU-funded Framework Programme 6 Network of Excellence GARNET that had a project running on the promotion of regional integration by the EU.
The event kicked-off with a key-note speech from Mario Telò (ULB, Free University of Brussels) and was followed by a roundtable chaired by Philippe De Lombaerde (UNU-CRIS) on the promotion of regional integration by the European Union. After a coffee break, discussions continued in four break-up sessions analysing more in detail EU inter-regionalism and the role of civil society in four specific world regions: the session on Asia was chaired by Alex Warleigh-Lack (Brunel University), the Latin America session was chaired by Philippe De Lombaerde (UNU-CRIS), the Sub-Saharan Africa session was chaired by Fredrik Söderbaum (Gothenburg University) and finally the session on the Middle East and North Africa was chaired by Louise Fawcett (Oxford University). A final key-note speech was given by the Belgian Ambassador Bertrand de Crombrugghe, Head of the ASEM 8 Task Force, on the preparations of the ASEM 8 conference and the role of civil society, later held in October in Brussels.