POL Department offers students virtual study trip programme

Due to the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium and Europe, the academic departments of our College of Europe Bruges campus are not able to organize their traditional yearly study trips in the second semester of the academic year 2020/2021. To make sure that the students of the Mário Soares Promotion can still enjoy a virtual voyage abroad, the European Political and Governance Studies Department proposed a fully new digital study trip programme.

This full-fledged alternative programme starts from Monday 8 until Thursday 11 February 2021 and includes a day dedicated to current EU topical issues, an institutions’ day with high-level conferences, and two days with interactive activities for the whole POL Department.

"The programme prepared this year is unique as we split the students in different groups, so that they can choose the activities that interest them most and can benefit from greater interactions with the guests. We are lucky to welcome experts from a variety of European institutions such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, the EDPS or the EEAS. The students will also enjoy lectures provided by professionals from international institutions such as NATO and the IOM. Likewise, non-institutional experts are part of the programme to offer them insiders’ perspectives on what is happening behind the scenes: when one must write a speech for a European leader, advocate for environmental concerns, write about the EU daily news, work on transparency issues or promote Trans-European research.

On the second day, the whole department will have the privilege to meet the former President of Poland, Mr Aleksander KWASNIEWSKI, who will discuss with them the state of democracy in the European Union, but also the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Ms Mariya GABRIEL, who will talk about her career path. The third day will be dedicated to online activities involving students’ active participation, so that they can spend time together and share moments of conviviality. Finally, this virtual study trip will end with a series night, as we will watch an episode from the series ‘Parlement’ and exchange with its author, Mr Maxime CALLIGARO,” explain Alexia FAFARA and Eva GERLAND, Academic Assistants of the European Political and Governance Studies Department. 

Below, you can find the detailed schedule of the virtual POL study trip.