Research trip to the EU: Conflicts of democracy in focus!

Research trip to the EU: Conflicts of democracy in focus!

dr. Anja Thomas has been researching at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences since September 2024 as part of the renowned Marie-Skłodowska-Curie promotion program. This Franco-German political scientist usually has her academic basis in Lille, France. Your current project deals with the legitimacy and acceptance of the EU's Economic and Monetary Union (WWU), whereby the focus is on the democratic conflicts in the political practice of the member states. Claudia Wiesner, who heads the project, emphasizes the competitive orientation of the support procedure, which makes it all the more important that Dr. Thomas was appointed to Fulda for two years.

The University of Lille has Dr. Thomas on good condition for this project, which aims to close a gap in the often one -sided reporting on the EU. In particular, it criticizes that the different public public public public is hardly in the dialogue. This can lead to conflicts of legitimacy, such as in German discourse on budgetary policy, which is often perceived as mere interest policy in other countries. In order to understand how such conflicts arise, Dr. Thomas interviews with parliamentarians from Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

EU funding programs and their importance

The research of Dr. Thomas is part of a wider framework of initiatives that aim to promote the research landscape in Europe. The European Commission has published a new study that examines the influence of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) on the mobility of researchers and for strengthening human capital in research and innovation. According to MSCA , the success rate for funding instruments is only 16%. This underlines the high competitiveness of the program and the associated prestige.

The MSCA not only enables mobility within the EU, but also a return of European researchers from abroad, especially in less developed regions. An additional financial requirement of 6 billion euros is required to take into account all high -quality but not funded proposals from 2021 and 2022. The returnees to their home countries, especially in Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Spain, are also supported.

variety in the research landscape

The MSCA also promotes a wide range of organizations and offers unique opportunities to improve working conditions that benefit the career opportunities of the participants. Over 80% of the participants in doctoral networks, Cofund and Staff Exchanges believe that MSCA support is a significant improvement in their professional perspectives.
The mobility patterns of the MSCA post documents remain similar to that with previous programs such as Horizon 2020, whereby Spain, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark are the leading countries, in to which most researchers are accommodated.

The main focus of the doctoral networks is on the cooperation between universities, research institutions and companies. This is done with the aim of training highly qualified doctoral students and improving their ability to work in the long term. The implementation of industrial doctoral agencies that enable training outside the academic world also shows the commitment to a varied research training.

In summary, it can be said that both Dr. Anja Thomas as part of the MSCA as well as the general goals of the program contribute to strengthening research and innovation in Europe. They help to develop a better understanding of the democratic standards in the EU and to promote diversity within the political systems. This could be of crucial importance at a time when the legitimacy of European structures is repeatedly questioned.