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When and how has European integration become a prominent issue in politics all around Europe? What can explain the rise to prominence of this issue on the radar of political parties, citizens, journalists, interest groups across the continent? Finally, where does it lead? Does increased public contestation over the shape and existence of the European Union affect the future course of integration and its democratic legitimacy? These questions about the nature, dynamics, causes and consequences of politicization stand at the heart of the ongoing project ‘Politicization of European integration’.

As part of the Integrated Project ‘Reconstituting Democracy in Europe (RECON)’, Online Euroscepticism aims to investigate how and to what extent prominent internet platforms across Europe function to facilitate debate about European integration. Procedurally, we investigate to what extent news websites and frequently visited blogs feature debate about Europe and how these websites function to facilitate or inhibit participation of political elites and citizens, publicity of main European topics and public opinion formation concerning key questions about European integration.

The motivation of PADEMIA is to establish a Europe-wide and sustainable network of 56 academic institutions from 31 countries to promote research and teaching in reaction to growing European demands to study parliamentary democracy in Europe.

In the face of an increasing percentage of elderly in the population of Western industrial societies the idea of “productive ageing” in the sense of an involvement of the elderly in productive activities has gained importance in the last years. This involves on the one hand their longer participation in the labour market, on the other hand, it includes various other forms of participation, such as volunteering, caring for their peers or for their grandchildren and other informal productive activities.

Measuring, assessing and rewarding performances in academic research and teaching are hotly debated in science policy-making. On one hand, advocates seeking for research to be increasingly measured and steered would inter alia combine arguments of a social contract in science with a scarcity of public resources: publicly financed scientists can only seize legitimacy in politics, society and towards other scientists by proving their relative performance in a well-documented and transparent manner. On the other hand, critics argue that measuring and rewarding research and teaching performance would compromise, and even supplant, the intrinsic motivation of scientists to strive for new knowledge.

The current state of institutional structures interlacing science and practice exists only on a low level. In the project “Unknown Terrain?” we illustrated that collaboration between scientists and practitioners are relevant indeed to ensure knowledge transfer processes. Interactive formats support the joint production of knowledge and reduce barriers of knowledge transfer.