Guidelines for Working Groups

Setting up a new working group

Please check first whether a similar working group already exists in your field. If so, please liaise with the organisers to see if it would be appropriate to work together, as overlaps in working group research areas should be avoided. See the full list of active working groups here.

If a similar working group does not exist and you would like to set up a new one, you should seek the support of at least one Law professor who works in that field. The new group should be then approved by the Head of Department and communicated to [email protected].

Description and webpage 

Once your working group is set up, please send a short description to [email protected] to be published on the working groups’ web page.

Each working group has a webpage on the EUI website. Please regularly check that your working group description and webpage are updated.

E-mail account and promotion of working group activities

All communications related to the activities of your working group, including the event organisation requests, must be made via an EUI e-mail account. If your working group does not have one, please write to [email protected] and the support team will activate one. It is important not to use personal emails or create a mailbox with commercial providers (Gmail, Yahoo...) to handle the communication of your working group.

To reach individual members, working groups can set up their own distribution lists. They can contact [email protected] if they need support for the promotion of their activities to the EUI community (including on Twitter), in particular when organizing events (see the Guidelines for Organising a Working group event below).

Organising events

If you want to organise a working group event and you need a meeting room and support for dissemination, please write to [email protected] at least 2 weeks before the event date, following the Guidelines for Organising a Working group event.

Accreditation of presentation 

• Under certain circumstances, 2nd and 3rd year researchers may fulfil the departmental presentation requirement by presenting their research during a working group event, provided the supervisor attends and approves the presentation

Inviting guest speakers 

Working groups may invite guest speakers to participate in their events. If funding is needed for such visits, it should be discussed with the working group’s supporting professor and financed from their lump sum upon their agreement. Their administrative assistant would then provide support for the budget preparation and procedure.

In exceptional circumstances and upon the approval of the Head of Department, funds from the departmental budget may be used to finance a visit by a guest speaker. In that case, the request should be addressed to [email protected]. Requests will be examined on a case-by-case basis by the Head of Department taking into account the budget availability and the relevance of the event for the Department.

No invitations should be issued to guest speakers, nor any expense made, before a financial commitment has been approved and processed. Visits should be approved, and funds committed as early as possible, at the very latest two weeks before the visit, otherwise it will be impossible to reimburse the expenses and the working group will be responsible for any outstanding costs.