The EUI is pleased to announce Jan Becker and Matei-Vlad Marcu as its new CIVICA Ambassadors. Selected through a dedicated call, CIVICA Ambassadors represent their own institutions in the academic communities across the 10-university alliance. They foster interaction and exchange within the network and are the first point of contact for their peers on CIVICA activities. Ambassadors are involved in student projects, take part in civic engagement initiatives, and start and support bottom-up initiatives.
Jan Becker, researcher at the EUI Department of History, and Matei-Vlad Marcu, master student at the Florence School of Transnational Governance, discuss what motivated them to serve as CIVICA Ambassadors and what they seek to achieve in their roles.
What does CIVICA mean to you?
Jan: I see CIVICA as an inspiring opportunity to strengthen the European idea of boundary-crossing, understanding, exchange, and collaboration. Lifting education to supranational levels, as CIVICA does, is one way of countering nationalising tendencies that seek to undermine EU achievements such as open borders and international political collaboration at large. I am convinced that most of the challenges European countries face today have to be addressed communally across Europe, and CIVICA has the merit of operating in this spirit.
Matei-Vlad: CIVICA is one of the most important networks of which the EUI is a part. It provides a great opportunity for our university to promote its ideas at a European level, especially through the voices of its students. I have been one of those voices and hope to contribute further to the engagement process that this network aims to provide. CIVICA is an initiative that promotes values I deeply connect with and provides an ideal environment to harmonise studies and research in social sciences across Europe.
How is European cooperation relevant to your research?
Jan: The EUI, where I pursue my PhD, would not exist were it not for European cooperation. It was established to promote international exchange and collaboration, and it still does. Primarily, however, European cooperation is relevant to my personal life, having lived in five European countries over the last few years. I have made friends from across Europe, which would not have been possible without freedom of movement and residence as well as projects and institutions that bring people together across boundaries such as the EUI, Erasmus+, and CIVICA.
Matei-Vlad: It is one of the main resources for my research area since the core of my studies is the EU. Therefore, any interaction at the European level is relevant to my research.
How can you and your colleagues/peers benefit from your university's participation in the CIVICA alliance?
Jan: The combination of educational offers and the opportunity to pursue individualised yet collaborative projects are at the heart of CIVICA’s value to the EUI’s community. CIVICA’s educational offers, like the Teacher Development Programme, the PhD Clinic, and the Early Stage Researcher Course Catalogue, are excellent opportunities to advance researchers’ and students’ knowledge and experience in teaching, their own field of research, and beyond. Besides these offers, CIVICA enables its members to carve out their own spaces within the alliance, for instance, through the collaborative research projects or the Student Engagement Fund.
Matei-Vlad: CIVICA is a great opportunity for all my colleagues to associate with other students who research the same field and improve their perspectives by exchanging knowledge. There is also a great chance that CIVICA offers associate research, such as the Student Engagement Fund.
What will be some of your priorities as a CIVICA Ambassador?
Jan: My priority as CIVICA Ambassador will be to listen to the EUI’s and, via the other ambassadors, the other institutions’ members and their wishes. I am convinced that higher education institutions and alliances primarily need to cater to their members’ needs. Beyond that, I will be happy to promote mobility between the different institutions in the form of exchanges, workshops, and sports events.
Matei-Vlad: I aim to make CIVICA and its opportunities more knowledgeable to my peers and connect the EUI with the rest of the nine other universities in the alliance in at least one project or exchange.
The CIVICA Ambassadors serve a one-year term. Jan and Matei-Vlad succeed Jakub Sawicki Christoph and Abbas Sibai, who served for the academic year 2023-2024.
CIVICA brings together ten leading European higher education institutions in the social sciences, humanities, business management and public policy, with a total of 72,000 students and 13,000 faculty members. Together, they build on an ever-stronger combination of teaching, research and innovation to mobilise and share knowledge as a public good and to facilitate civic responsibility in Europe and beyond.
Jan Becker is a researcher in the EUI Department of History. His thesis title is 'Colonial Surgery in an Age of Medical Reform: Wouter Schouten and His World, 1638-1704', supervised by Professor Lauren Kassel.
Matei-Vlad Marcu is a master student at the Florence School of Transnational Governance. His study interests include the European Union, EU external relations, EU governance and Europeanisation, and regionalism and federalism.