I feel very fortunate to have been a Jean Monnet Fellow. For me, as someone whose primary interest is research, this fellowship afforded ample opportunities to pursue my own research projects and also provided me with a wonderful set of colleagues who gave valuable feedback and intellectual stimulation. I enjoyed the interaction and collaboration with the other fellows and faculty in the Robert Schuman Centre and also with the SPS department. The experience prepared me for further endeavors in academia and offered me the opportunity to enjoy beautiful Tuscan living.

Autumn Lockwood Payton, Jean Monnet Fellow 2010-2011 (Research Fellow Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung)

 

Don't apply for a Jean Monnet Fellowship! It’s a trap set up by the European University Institute! They’ll invite you to spend a year in warm and sunny Florence, surrounded by inspiring people in a gorgeous location with amazing food and the best work conditions that the academic world is able to offer. Only, they forget to tell you that once your year is up and you need to leave, you don’t wanna go.

Jacob Weisdorf, Jean Monnet Fellow 2010-2011 (Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen) 

 

The Jean Monnet Fellowship at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies was one of the most enriching professional and personal experiences in my life. It gave me the possibility to develop my own research agenda and to engage with international scholarly communities. It not only enabled me to significantly upgrade my methodological and academic know how, but it also gave me the opportunity to interact with wonderful people (co-fellows and researchers) with whom I hope to maintain lifelong friendships. This experience will be indelibly ingrained in my memory.

Tamirace Fakhoury, Jean Monnet Fellow 2010-2011 (Assistant-Professor Lebanese American University)

 

Being Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute has been a great experience. For me, as an economist, working there provided great opportunities to meet many academics as well as practitioners through the different workshops and seminars. Moreover, the interdisciplinarity of the Jean Monnet program offers a unique chance to exchange ideas and discuss with researchers with different backgrounds. Finally, the institute is located in a beautiful setting which gives me great inspiration to undertake my projects.

Joeffrey Drouard, Jean Monnet Fellow 2010-2011 (Assistant Professor, University of Rennes)

 

The Jean Monnet Fellowship contributed in most different ways to my academic life. First of all, it offered me very precious time for my own research and, thus, a unique opportunity to substantially advance in my academic work. With an excellent mixture of time for focused reflection on my research and time for creative distraction through conferences, workshops and seminars it, furthermore, provided an ideal frame for most interesting and inspiring exchange with colleagues from various disciplines and from all around the world. By doing so, it contributed to a further widening of academic perspective beyond my field of specialisation and to an awareness-raising to new thematic horizons, understandings and interlinkages. As a result, a plethora of new ideas emerged from a year full of new insights and inspirations to enrich my further academic work.

Gaby Umbach, Jean Monnet Fellow 2010-2011 (European University Institute)

It is difficult to summarize a deep and enlightening experience such as the Jean Monnet Fellowship. To me, three aspects are mostly distinctive. First, pursuing your own research in a place such as the European University Institute gives you the possibility of everyday interaction with faculty from world-class departments (as I experienced with the SPS department) in a friendly and easy-going environment. Secondly, the Jean Monnet programme is special in that – being hosted at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies – it is explicitly aimed at strong multidisciplinarity: as a political scientist, I regularly interacted with historians, sociologists, economists, lawyers, anthropologists. Something that is incredibly helpful in learning how to put the technicalities apart and extract the very core of your ideas and results. Thirdly, one year at the EUI gives the sensation of sitting at a world-level crossroads of social science research, providing incredible networking opportunities. Due to an impressive array of conferences, workshops and debates, scholars from the whole world come and go every week at the European University Institute: from senior professors to young, brilliant postdoctoral researchers, not to mention the determined and skilled graduate students from the European University Institute graduate programme. Spacecrafts often use a manoeuvre known as a “gravity assist”: once accurately sent to orbit for a few times around a large planet, they are then able to escape away with their speed multiplied several times. I would say that a Jean Monnet Fellowship would definitely act as such assist for the career of any postdoctoral researcher. And all this, in what is maybe one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Lorenzo De Sio, Jean Monnet Fellow 2010-2011 (Assistant Professor, LUISS Guido Carli, Roma)