The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at The University of Texas at Austin has been selected by the European Commission as the host of a new European Union Center of Excellence. The Strauss Center will receive nearly $300,000 over three years to pursue research and studies on how the European Union and the United States are responding to problems created by globalization.

The new center will work to spur dialogue on the common challenges facing Europe and the United States and seek to create opportunities for Europeans and Americans to discuss and evaluate competing policy solutions.  The Center will also work to increase awareness of European issues in Texas and create possibilities for forging common ground on major issues within the Atlantic alliance.  

“Both the European Union and the United States are struggling with the fact that in today’s globalizing world events far beyond one country’s borders may have profound effects at home,” said James M. Lindsay, Director of the Strauss Center. “Thanks to the European Commission, Texans will now have an opportunity to participate in and contribute to important debates within the transatlantic community on how to make globalization work for everyone.”

The EU Center will host conferences and workshops on issues such as energy policy, technology, immigration, and cross-border crime.  Idea-sharing will be promoted through student exchanges and research projects, as well as by bringing visiting scholars from the European Union to the University of Texas. The Center will work with the private sector and local and state government officials on regulatory and economic development issues. The Center will also offer workshops for secondary school teachers in Central Texas looking for information and ideas about Europe for their students.

Terri Givens, Strauss Center Senior Fellow, Vice Provost of the University of Texas and Associate Professor of Government will direct the new Center. “As a specialist in European Politics, I am excited to have the opportunity to invite opinion leaders and researchers on Europe to the University of Texas at Austin,” said Givens.  “The new EU Center will be an important generator of new ideas for approaching common challenges such as energy security, immigration, and terrorism.”

The new EU Center will be both multidisciplinary and campus-wide in its operations.  The new Center will work closely with the Center for European Studies and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies as well as with individual schools and colleges such as the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Law School.

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The Commission supports European Union Centers of Excellence at select universities throughout the United States as part of an effort to promote people-to-people ties across the Atlantic.

The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law engages the best minds in academia, government and the private sector in developing practical solutions to the pressing problems of an increasingly globalized world.  For more information on the Strauss Center, please visit www.StraussCenter.org.