Posted on 17 September 2019
Emma Navarro, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank Group (the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund), and Renaud Dehousse, President of the European University Institute (EUI), have signed in Luxembourg a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in the fields of academic research, teaching and training.
'The European University Institute is a unique institution for research and knowledge with a European focus and with whom the EIB has had an ongoing relationship for many years. I am very pleased to sign this new agreement to reinforce and develop cooperation between the European University Institute and the EIB, the EU’s Bank.', Vice-President Navarro said.
'This agreement takes stock of what we do and opens the door to a more intense cooperation between the EUI and the EIB, one of the key stakeholders of the EU', President Dehousse said. 'It is an honour for me to sign this important cooperation agreement between the European Investment Bank and the European University Institute. Formalising this partnership will give us the impetus, not only to raise the profile of mutual research outcomes, but also to generate and disseminate knowledge concerning policies and programmes related to sustainable socio-economic development in Europe and beyond. The EIB-EUI partnership is where policy-making meets and engages with academia!'.
EUI President Renaud Dehousse and Emma Navarro, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank Group
The new agreement calls for joint research activities and seminars on economics, finance or public policy topics relevant to the EIB and the EUI as well as giving to the EUI’s students and researchers the opportunity to attend lectures and seminars taught by EIB staff in Florence at the EUI premises and jointly developing other projects such as publications, sponsorships or other collaboration on professional experience. Teaching at the European University Institute by EIB staff in areas of competence of the EIB (investment projects and their financing, European policies, economics, law or global issues, and the like) will be encouraged as well as training activities mutually beneficial to the EUI students and to EIB staff.
The EIB and the EUI have already partnered on many occasions. In 2017, EIB Group President Werner Hoyer spoke at the prestigious Conference on the State of the Union; in 2018, a research on 'The EIB and the Mezzogiorno in the context of regional development (1958-1973)' was carried out under the framework of a STAREBEI research grant; and the EIB Institute has regularly supported seminars and sent EIB Group participants to Florence School of Banking & Finance seminars. Also, between 2002 and 2005, the EIB co-financed the EUI’s second Chair of Mediterranean Studies.
The European University Institute is a unique international centre for doctoral and post-doctoral studies and research. Founded in 1972 by the six original members of the then European Communities, it opened its doors in 1976. The EUI has 23 contracting states from the EU, and has earned a reputation as a leading international academic institution with a European focus. Its four departments – Economics, History and Civilization, Law, and Political and Social Sciences – host scholars from more than 60 countries, studying for the Institution’s doctorate or the master in law.
It also hosts the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), focused on inter-disciplinary, comparative and policy research on the major issues affecting European societies, the Max Weber Programme for Post-doctoral Studies and, since 2017, the School of Transnational Governance, which offers training in governance beyond the state to professionals and masters students.
The EUI is also home to the Historical Archives of the European Union including, since 2005, the archives of the EIB which have been used by many researchers interested in studying the seminal role of the EU Bank in financing Europe’s priorities: infrastructure, innovation, SMEs and climate.
This is the ninth agreement that the EIB is signing with a university under the framework of the EIB Institute’s Knowledge Programme. The EUI maintains partnerships with approximately 100 academic and non-academic institutional partners.
The EIB Institute manages the cooperation agreements (partnerships, MoUs...) of the EIB Group with universities.