The Center

The Jean Monnet Center of Excellence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has the Overall Objective to examine current challenges facing both the European Union and the United States to find united responses through transatlantic dialogue. Our goal is to create future EU experts through teaching, research, and events.

Grant Activities

The Jean Monnet Center of Excellence’s specific goals include:

• Increasing teaching and research on the EU by 16 Faculty Experts across UNC’s campus;
• Fostering EU-US dialogue on all six European Commission priorities at 14 on-campus events;
• Creating and preparing future EU experts through professional development opportunities in the EU for graduate students; and
• Increasing visibility, knowledge, and understanding of the EU through creation and dissemination of outputs to a diverse target audience.

Serving as a research-based think tank at UNC-CH, the JMCE’s goal is to provide leading research and teaching, as well as events and knowledge platforms on European Union studies. Between 2023-2026, the JMCE is hosting 14 research-driven conferences and lectures on vital topics of interest to EU-US relations. We are offering 6 funding awards for graduate student research. Our Medium blog showcases perspectives from awardees and our events. The EU-US Futures podcast provides in-depth interviews with JMCE key faculty and visiting experts from our events. The JMCE also supports expert research, including the 2024-25 round of the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the longest running survey of party positions in Europe and the EU. Overall, we provide a space for EU studies on campus and broaden visibility on, interest in, and understanding of the European Union throughout the local community and across the Atlantic – all while building lasting partnerships for many years to come.

Our Theme

The JMCE’s theme is EUUSFUTURE: The EU and the US face challenges to democracy, rule of law, equality, digital space, a clean environment, and their role in the world order: issues that will impact the future of our citizens. The EU has outlined six specific priorities which identify challenges and goals to combat current and ensuing crises. This project will focus on these priorities and examine issues from an EU perspective in order to learn from the EU’s responses. High-level scholars will come together in dialogue with both an on- and off-campus community, current experts as well as those new to the discussion, to ensure the widest and most diverse audience gains an understanding of the issues facing the EU. Through in-depth time spent in the EU, we will prepare young people to become EU experts.

Funding

This Center is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.