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COOPERATION WITH THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

European Union–Sponsored M.Phil Course Work Programme

In September 1999, a European Union-sponsored programme in European Studies was launched at the ASCE for a three-year period. It was a comprehensive programme covering nearly all the activities of the Centre. Under this EU-sponsored programme, the European Union rendered technical and financial assistance to the Centre. The updated curricula of the M.Phil./Ph.D course work programme (focused on European Union studies) was mostly taught in the first two years by Visiting Professors from European Universities and a Resident Expert from Europe.

The Centre’s Academic Staff, now trained in European Union subjects in European Universities, have, after completion of the programme in August 2002, taken over the responsibility of teaching these advanced courses in the programme.

The Jean Monnet Project 2001

In 2001, the ASCE was awarded the Jean Monnet Chair of European Political Science by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education and Culture (Higher Education: Socrates-Erasmus, Jean Monnet Project) for a three-year period. Under the contract, after three years the project would continue for another two years without funding.

The Jean Monnet Project aims to support the setting up of academic initiatives in European integration studies in selected universities all over the world. It is a pilot initiative offering symbolic support to European Integration specialists with the aim of lending greater visibility to their work in the field.

Recently, the Centre’s Jean Monnet Project was selected for inclusion in the compendium Jean Monnet Project: Success Stories published by the European Commission.

Under this project, besides conducting courses on the European Union, the ASCE carried out research on European Union – related topics and also held seminars and workshops. Eminent scholars were invited to participate in these events.

The CLIMA Project

The Area Study Centre for Europe, University of Karachi became a partner in the project “CLIMA” (Euro Asian Research and Training in Climate Change Management) funded by the European Union. It was launched in March 2006 and ended in February 2009. The Centre inducted experts from two institutes of the University of Karachi – the Institute of Environmental Studies and the Centre of Excellence for Marine Sciences in this project to assist in its scientific aspects.

CLIMA has been developed within the European Commission’s Asia-Link Programme, which is dedicated to networking between European and Asian higher education institutions. Its objective is to create a Euro-Asian network on Climate Change and Sustainable Development.

Within the 3 year duration of this project, CLIMA has trained 20 young selected researchers / faculty from the following partner Universities/ Institutes:

  1. Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy (2 trainees)
  2. University of Padova, Italy (2 trainees)
  3. Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France (2 trainees)
  4. Renmin University, People’s Republic China (4 trainees)
  5. Vrije University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2 trainees)
  6. Tsinghua University, Peoples’ Republic of China (4 trainees)
  7. University of Karachi, Pakistan (4 trainees)

The training was done through four thematic workshop/training sessions. Twenty Research Papers were developed / published on various aspects of Climate Change by the trainees under the supervision of international experts. These four training sessions have resulted in the development of course materials for an on-line curriculum Master’s Programme on Climate Change Management.

The Final Conference of CLIMA was held in Venice from 9-11 October, 2008. A delegation from the University of Karachi participated in the Conference, headed by Prof. Dr. Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui, Vice Chancellor, University of Karachi.

The aim of this Project was to simultaneously establish an on-line Master’s Programme on Climate Change Management in all the participant institutions. Hopefully this aim will be achieved in the near future.