What happens to the sensitive coastal ecosystem when Europe grows ever closer together? What problems arise and how can they be solved? Oldenburg researchers are looking for the answers at the newly established Jean Monnet Centre "Europeanising Coastal Regions".
The University of Oldenburg has a new EU-funded centre of excellence: the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence "Europeanising Coastal Regions", EuCoRe for short. Its interdisciplinary research will centre on the question of how coastal areas and their use are changing in the context of European integration, what problems arise and how these can be solved. It also aims to qualify students and other interested parties in various areas of European coastal zone development.
"Most of the continent's people live in Europe's coastal areas, and this is where concentrated economic activity meets a high level of ecological sensitivity," says Prof. Dr Ingo Mose, spokesperson for the new EuCoRe Centre of Excellence and holder of a Jean Monnet Professorship for Europeanisation and Sustainable Spatial Development since 2012. "For sustainable spatial management, various utilisation interests must be harmonised - coastal regions are therefore ideal for gaining a better understanding of spatial development processes and political governance in Europe."
Prof. Dr Katharina Al-Shamery, Vice President for Research at the university, underlined the importance of the new research centre: "This approval demonstrates the high international reputation that Oldenburg's coastal research enjoys." Al-Shamery described the Jean Monnet Centre as "another important building block in the university's internationalisation strategy".
In addition to the geographer Mose, who is also the Director of the Center for Sustainable Spatial Development Oldenburg (ZENARiO), other Oldenburg scientists are involved in the new Center of Excellence: the physicist Prof. Dr. Joachim Peinke, Director of the cross-faculty Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research (COAST), the European sociologist Prof. Dr Jannika Mattes, the biodiversity and marine researcher Prof. Dr Helmut Hillebrand and the EU policy expert Prof. Dr Torsten Jörg Selck.
The European Union is funding EuCoRe for three years. The new research centre is intended to create additional courses for various fields of study and qualification levels and also strengthen transnational transfer through the exchange of students and researchers. International dialogue forums between science and practice are also planned.
After the Jean Monnet Center for Europeanisation and Transnational Regulation (CETRO), EuCoRe is the second such centre of excellence at the University of Oldenburg.