Jean-Monnet ad Personam Chair

Jean MonnetThe Jean Monnet Programme is part of the European Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) in the field of education and training. This platform stimulates teaching, reflection, and debate on the European integration process at higher education institutions.

In 2013, José Manuel Martínez Sierra was awarded the Jean Monnet ad Personam Chair in European Union Law and Government, which contributes to a deeper understanding of the EU in the US. These activities particularly focus on at Harvard and the MIT. This project represents a continuation of his previous Jean Monnet Chair in European Law awarded in 2007.

As part of this program Martínez Sierra, Jean Monnet ad PersonamChair, supports several study groups and projects at Harvard University:

This Study Group focuses on the legal and governmental dimension of the study of European integration. Serving as a bridge between HLS and CES, it brings legal expertise to the Center to address the EU’s novel architecture and sui generis institutional dynamics. Our aim is to produce synergies with other areas of study such as economics, political science or history.

The economic crisis in the Eurozone has revealed new fissures between debtor and creditor states in the EU and has led to talk of center-periphery dynamics. This Study Group explores perspectives from the Southern European debtor countries, including Italy, Spain and Portugal, relevant to current debates about the future of Europe. It considers the political, social and economic consequences of the Eurozone crisis, including high unemployment, a dramatic crisis of legitimacy, and the rise of new forms of populism.

This Study Group is built around the Erasmus + Jean Monnet 2016 Project "Enhancing governance of EU policies: legal and institutional learnings from a US-EU dialogue” leaded by Professor Martinez Sierra. It aims to create a network exclusively focused on promoting the legal and institutional learnings from a US-EU dialogue in one of the most well-known and influential academic environments in the world organising events to promote discussion and reflection on EU issues and enhance knowledge about the Union and its processes. The final goal of this Study Group is, using as the main engine the three key drivers of the knowledge triangle, education, innovation and research, seek to establish mechanisms so that certain European scholars, civil servants, leaders and Jean Monnet Centers of Excellence may have structural relations with the Harvard academic environment.

This Chair is one of the few Jean Monnet ad personam Chairs existing in the United States and it is part of the EU Jean Monnet Network in the US. The EU program "European Union Centers in the United States” was pivotal in helping the field of EU studies gain traction in American higher education. It aims to deepen teaching in European integration studies embodied in an official curriculum of a higher education institution, as well as to conduct, monitor and supervise research on EU content, also for other educational levels such as teacher training and compulsory education. It also intends to provide in-depth teaching on European integration matters for future professionals in fields which are in increasing demand on the labour market, and at the same time aim at encouraging, advising and mentoring the young generation of teachers and researchers in European integration subject areas. Considered centers of excellence, they met once a year to collaborate on latest developments on EU integration and to discuss best practices for professional and academic coordination. This Chair is also linked to the European Union Studies Association that has been awarded the Getting to Know Europe grant to coordinate the outreach activities of the Jean Monnet Centers, Chairs, and Modules in the U.S. 

Additionally, Professor Martínez Sierra, Jean Monnet ad Personam Chair, is supporting other significant activities at Harvard, such as the 2016 Summit on the Future of Europe, the European Club at the Harvard Kennedy School and the European Conference at Harvard. Martínez Sierra is also Academic Advisor of the European Horizons at Yale University, supporting, among other things, the European Student Conference, at the School of Management.

This Jean Monnet Chair covers both the internal and external dimension of European integration, including the European Union's role in the dialogue between peoples and cultures and the EU's role and perception in the world. It is supported by the European Union Delegation to the United States, aiming at promoting association of international professors and researchers and to inform about the research activities.

He also teaches courses at Harvard College related with Europe and Spain.

If you are a faculty or student interested in promoting a better EU understanding, please propose here your idea.

Learn more about the European Union:

European Union  
European Community Studies Association (ECSA)  
EU Official Documents  
European Association for American Studies  
Fullbright-Schuman Program