In early March, the REMIT consortium met for its Kickoff Meeting in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The two days of meetings were full of inspiring discussions and planning for the work ahead.
Part of the meeting was held at the Château Neercanne, known for its historical significance. Both the European Union and the Euro were born in Maastricht on December 9th, 1991, with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. It was at Château Neercanne that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands hosted a lunch for all European leaders. Taking inspiration from events at the birth of the EU, the REMIT project identifies with the goals of the Treaty on European Union. Key amongst these goals is the strengthening of European integration and common foreign and security policies through research.
“It is very motivating and exciting to discuss and brain-storm on multilateralism and European democracy with bright-eyed researchers from such high-level universities working across different fields in Europe. It was synergy of competences in its best sense of meaning”, said Elis Vollmer, communication manager for the REMIT project.
Prof. Christopher Weible, one of the leading Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) experts in the world, joined the Kickoff Meeting. Chris is a professor at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. Amongst his accolades is a 2022 honorary doctor from Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. His research and teaching centres on policy process theories and methods, democracy, and environmental policy. Prof Weible presented to REMIT researchers an overview of the ACF. He joins the project as a member of our Stakeholder Advisory Board.
