European Community Studies Association: Research, Cooperation & History

About the European Community Studies Association (ECSA)

Members of ECSA are associations in different countries (both from the EU Member States and from other parts of the world) which share the main objectives of ECSA. That means: associations from the university environment dealing with the goal to reinforce teaching and research on the European integration and having legal personality according to the laws of the single State. The General Assembly decides about membership upon proposal of the Board. Currently, the following Associations are ECSA members.

• UE Members Countries
• 3rd Countries

Past ECSA World activities

1. 9 November 2015: ECSA General Assembly, Brussels.
2. 1, 2 October 2014: ECSA General Assembly, Brussels - ECSA Workshop "The future of the European studies", Brussels.
3. 5, 6 May 2014: ECSA World session "Political Parties and Civil Society Organizations in the Democracy Transition in the southern Mediterranean" within de framework of the ECSA Italy International Conference “Representative Democracy and Political Participation. Towards a European Transnational Party System”.
4. 15,16 November 2013: ECSA General Assembly, Brussels - ECSA Workshop "The future of the European studies", Brussels.
5. 26 September 2013: Workshop “Teaching Europe”, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona (Spain).
6. 9, 10 May 2013: Workshop “Improving the European Studies” within de framework of the ECSA US Conference “EUSA Thirteenth Biennal Conference”, Baltimore (Maryland, US).
7. November 2012: Jean Monnet and ECSA Symposium “Sustainable Growth in the European Union-The Role of Education and Trainings”, Brussels.
8. May 2012: Symposium “On Situation and Perspectives for the European Studies”, Barcelona (Spain).
9. May 2010: Jean Monnet and ECSA Conference “The European Union after the Treaty of Lisbon”, Brussels.

From the History of ECSA

ECSA Hungary

ECSA Hungary was founded at 1990 and the first president was FERENC MÁDL. He was born in 1931 in Bánd, western Hungary. Mádl studied Law at the universities of Pécs and Budapest, gaining a degree at the law faculty of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, in 1955. He was the second President of the third Republic of Hungary having served from 4 August 2000 to 5 August 2005. In these five years, Ferenc Mádl expressed its commitment to the country's accession to the EU and the European integration process.

One of the three ECSA Hungary founders is PETER BALASZ, a Hungarian politician and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, born in Kecskemét, 1941. He graduated from Budapest School of Economics in 1963 and worked in the Hungarian government until 1 May 2004 when his country joined the European Union and was appointed to the European Commission. He became the Hungarian European Commissioner holding the Regional Policy portfolio until the end of the Prodi Commission on 21 November 2004. Balázs became a professor at the International Relations and European Studies Department of the Central European University (CEU), Budapest. In 2005, he established a new research center for EU Enlargement Studies at the CEU. Péter Balázs became the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs in April 2009, serving until May 2010.

ECSA Hong Kong

ECSA Hong Kong was founded in 1995. Professor Murray Forsyth (1936 Victoria, Hong Kong), the first president of the association, is a British political scientist. He was educated at Wellington College and Balliol College, Oxford. He is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Leicester. He is the author of “The Political Classics. A Guide to the Essential Texts from Plato to Rousseau”, “Federalism and Nationalism”, “Political Science, Federalism and Europe”. After his retirement, he spent three years in Hong Kong and there founded the ECSA association.

Brian Bridges is one of the founders of the ECSA Hong Kong association. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics Science and Sociology at Lingnan College (Hong Kong), specializing in Politics and International Relations of the Asian Pacific region. His publications include “Korea after the Crash (2001)” and “The Two Koreas and the Politics of Global Sport” (2012). He is writer and consultant on Asian affairs at Independent researcher.

ECSA New Zealand

ECSA New Zealand was founded in 1995 by Professor Martin Holland, the current president of the association.

Prof. Holland is Director of both the National Centre for Research on Europe at the University of Canterbury and of European Union Center Network in New Zealand and is an active member of a number of international EU research networks. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam since 2008.

Professor Holland is professor at the University of Canterbury since 1984: in 2000 he established the National Centre for Research on Europe, New Zealand’s only dedicated

EU tertiary level centre. In the last two six-yearly research assessment cycles in New Zealand (PBRF) he received an A grade denoting a recognized international reputation.

He has been a visiting lecturer at a number of EU programmes in Asia and in the USA. Holland is internationally recognized for his work on EU Development Policy, Common Foreign and Security Policy and Perceptions of the EU. He is the author of over one hundred articles as well as twenty-three books, two recent titles being “Development Policy of the EU” and “Communicating Europe in the Times of Crisis: External Perceptions of the European Union”.

ECSA Slovenia

Andrej Kumar founded ECSA Slovenia in 2001 and he is the current chair of the association.

Prof. Kumar is full professor at the Faculty of Economics of Ljubljana University, where he teaches subjects from the Undergraduate University Degree Program “Analysis and development of global markets”, “Economic integration processes” or “EU Economics and Slovenian”, and from the Graduate Program such as “Economic Policies of the EU”.

Other names of the founders of ECSA Slovenia also come from Ljubljana University. Is the case of Katja Zajc Kejžar, who is the current vice-president of the Slovenian association, is regular member at the Department of International Economics and Business at the same University. Among her publications there are “Effects of FDI on industry structure: a host country perspective” and “Does Foreign Direct Investment Induce Domestic Mergers?”

Besides, both founders Samo Zupančič and Rudi Rozman work at the Faculty of Economy of Ljubljana University. To be exact Zupančič at the Bologna masters programs (International Business Logistics). Miha Juhart and Peter Grilc come from the Faculty of Law. Juhart holds a Jean Monnet Chair of Civil Law and Grilc is the Dean of the Faculty. Irena Brinar (Faculty of Social Sciences) is the Head of the Office for the EU and International Project.

Other founders of the Slovenian ECSA are Vladimir Kenda (founder and worked at the International Business School de Ljubljana), Mirko Ilešič (author of many books of European issues) and Vladimir Lavrač, who is Senior Research Fellow from the Institute for Economic Research and author of many articles such as “Inclusion of Slovenia in the Euro Area and Perspectives of Enlargment after the Global Financial Crisis” and “Euro adoption in Central and Eastern Europe: Opportunities and Challenges”.

ECSA Australia

ECSA Australia (Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia – CESAA) was founded in 1991.

testFirst president was LINDA HANCOCK. Professor Hancock (PhD, Monash) is a social scientist in public and social policy. She is currently the Director of the Master’s Program of Politics and Policy at Deakin University.

She was Director of the Public Policy Master’s Program at University of Melbourne, Director of the Corporate Citizenship Research Unit at Deakin University, and Partnerships Manager at the Deakin University Alfred Deakin Research Institute (ADRI). From December 2007 to 2010, Prof. Hancock was Research Director for the Responsible Gambling Fund (RGF, formerly the Responsibility in Gambling Trust), the national charity responsible for commissioning research, prevention, and treatment on gambling in the United Kingdom.

Prof. Hancock is a member of national and international research societies, policy advisory groups, and in internationally funded research bodies and regularly reviews for international journals and publishing houses. Her recently published monograph “Regulatory Failure? The Case of Crown Casino” (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011) interrogates regulation theory and reports on original empirical research on casino codes of practice on responsible gambling and responsible service of alcohol.