Posted on 30 April 2013
Ben Wellings, Convenor of European Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, research on Relationships between nationalism and European integration at the end of the First World War
"What I like about research in archives is the comparison you get between the present and the past. We can say that all history is contemporary history. What this means is that when you look at the past you make an implicit comparison with the present.
Furthermore, problems we have now were often present in the past, too; and the way people reached their decisions to resolve past crises, as documented in archives, impacts on us in the present."
Emily Marker, Doctoral candidate, Chicago University, USA, research on Youth policy and education reform in post-war France and the beginnings of European integration
"Students of European Integration have an interesting experience working at the Historical Archives of the European Union because this archive is itself a result of that process. My idea of archival research is to recuperate stories we do not know yet and to present and share them, so that people can better understand the world they live in and how we got where we are today.
Let’s look at the example of France: French history since Second World War cannot be understood as national history. The country was participating in the transnational European project as multi-continental, multi-racial and multi-religious entity and through that French vehicle the early European project was extended far beyond the geographical European continent. European history itself is therefore global history."
Hauke Delfs, Doctoral candidate, Göttingen University, Germany, research on Political processes developing throughout the financial crisis from a legal point of view
"If you want to understand what is happening nowadays in Europe, you need to discover the past. To get a better view on current developments and on the ideas and actors behind them, you have to look back.
For me as a lawyer this is particularly challenging because law departments and legal debate in the European Union often do not use a historical approach in building their arguments and often undervalue historical facts."
Rebekka Byberg, Doctoral candidate, Copenhagen University, Denmark, research on The history of European Union Law and the interaction between law and politics
"We still lack a thorough understanding of how the European Union developed into the very complex policy setting we see today. Archival research can provide such an understanding of the various historical developments and help us to better understand what is happening today.
This sort of understanding can provide a good starting point for a debate on how we want the European Union to develop in the future."