Bulletin

Issue: August/September 2006

News

Understanding Europe

The value of La Trobe University’s European Union subject for advancing a deeper understanding of international relationships was demonstrated with the launch of Innovative Universities European Union (IUEU) Centre at the main Melbourne campus at Bundoora recently.

The subject was pivotal to La Trobe’s successful bid for the Centre, one of the three Australian-based European Union Centres opened at Federation Square on July 31 by European Union Ambassador Bruno Julien.

IUEU Centre Director, Dr Philip Bull, says the core unit in La Trobe’s Bachelor’s degree course in Contemporary European Studies - and a popular second and third year unit for other students - will now be taught in all six universities involved in the Centre: in the lead institutions La Trobe and Macquarie Universities, as well as Griffith, Newcastle, Flinders and Murdoch Universities.

Dr Bull says this will be the first time in Australian tertiary education that a subject from one university will be taught in other universities.

He also announced the appointment of prize-winning author and academic Dr Stefan Auer, from the Dublin European Institute, University College, Dublin, for whom the EU subject will be a primary teaching responsibility.

Dr Auer is the author of Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe, published by Routledge in 2004 and recently republished in paperback. He takes up his appointment in October.

Dr Bull says the EU subject has also achieved recognition outside the University, among EU and other diplomats for generating better informed opinion about the EU.

Ambassador Julien said there were now 22 such EU centres in the world - in the US, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Australia.

‘The initiative is designed to reinforce and broaden links between the EU and the host country, to inform and stimulate debate on the European Union, and to widen and deepen the relationship at all levels.

‘Centres such as these are ideally placed to encourage informed discussion on bilateral and international issues in which we - Australia and the European Union - play an important role. ‘