Today’s abig day for us. This evening we have the official launch of CRonEM, our Centre for Research on the European Matrix, headed up by my next-door neighbour Prof Alex Warleigh-Lack. With Sir Stephen Wall and Richard Corbett discussing whether “the EU Has Passed its Sell-by Date?” at Europe House in London, we’ve had lots of interest, both in the event and the Centre.

CRoNEM is a new multidisciplinary research centre housed in the School of Politics at the University of Surrey. 

At CRonEM, we research European integration as a matrix of overlapping layers of governance, institutions and processes that shape how people of this continent live their lives and are governed, as well as how Europe engages the rest of the world. We understand the EU as a core part of this matrix, but not as a synonym for it.

CRonEM organises a series of research seminars, an annual conference and other events aimed at outreach beyond academia, particularly in the Surrey region. We also welcome proposals from visiting scholars with research interests that reflect our research agenda.

One of the things that I will be looking forward to with particular interest is next year’s conference, with its twin tracks of panels and workshops, allowing space for much fuller discussion of contributions, rather than the often hurried format of general conferences. I’m working with several colleagues in the UACES Collaborative Research Network on Euroscepticism to pull together ideas for the event and it’s looking very interesting indeed.

So while most of the country belatedly remembers that they didn’t vote in the PCC elections today, my colleagues and I will be debating the future of Europe and the quality of Europe House’s nibbles. We’ll be getting the better end of that deal, I believe, so if you’d like to join in CRonEM’s activities on some other occasion, then we’d be glad to talk with you.