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About the project
PLATO is an EU-funded PhD network coordinated by Prof. Christopher Lord at ARENA. It brings together nine university partners from across Europe to recruit a group of 15 PhD researchers to undertake a common multidisciplinary investigation into crisis and the legitimacy of the Union. The doctoral researchers work together with senior researchers from across the network.
PLATO uses the example of the financial crisis to build and test theory of what would amount to a legitimacy crisis in the case of a multi-state, non-state political system such as the EU.
Partner institutions
PLATO's team brings together nine university partners and eleven training partners from the policy advice, civil society and consulting sector, media and career development.
University partners
- University of Oslo, ARENA Centre for European Studies, Christopher Lord (coordinator)
- Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies (Freie Universität Berlin/WZB Berlin Social Science Center/Hertie School of Governance), Markus Jachtenfuchs
- Sciences Po Paris, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE), Colin Hay
- Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Department of Political Science, Katrin Auel
- Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Sociology, Zdenka Mansfeldova
- Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Institute of European Studies, Zdzislaw Mach
- University of Antwerp, ACIM – Antwerp Centre for Institutions and Multilevel Politics, Dirk De Bièvre
- University of Cambridge, Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), Chris Bickerton
- University of Twente, Twente Graduate School – Innovation of Governance, Bas Denters and Ramses Wessel
Training partners
- Bruegel, Brussels
- Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels
- Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, The Hague
- Democracy International, Cologne
- EUobserver, Brussels
- European Citizen Action Service (ECAS), Brussels
- Jacques Delors Institute – Berlin
- Kellen, Brussels
- Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), Warsaw
- Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin
- Vitae, The Career Development Organisation (CRAC), Cambridge
News
2016: ARENA celebrates new success
ARENA and professor Chris Lord have won through with the PhD network PLATO in Horizon 2020. Lord will coordinate nine leading research universities and eleven private partners.
PLATO is a so-called ITN – Innovative Training Network – under the EU’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie programme. Key to this is international and cross-sectoral mobility for young researchers.
Dynamics between academic and private sector
Chris Lord is to coordinate a PhD network with 20 partners. Together they constitute an extraordinary partnership, he says.
– We have assembled nine leading European research universities and eleven private partners and civil society organisations, including some of the most active think tanks on European integration. I recently participated at a fabulous event organised by one of them. Our partner Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) gathered close to 1,000 people representing governments, businesses, NGOs and European institutions at their Ideas Lab in Brussels. PLATO will bring about an exciting dynamic putting together leading research institutions with the most exciting and buzzing private organisations in the field, Lord explains with great enthusiasm.
Fifteen PhDs will be recruited to follow an intense and academically challenging training programme, including research stays and internships. The young researchers must be extraordinarily competent individuals, but also team players, Lord underlines.
No simple answers
PLATO is very ambitious also in terms of scientific achievements. The network is to investigate what constitutes a legitimacy crisis in a non-state system, the EU.
– PLATO is not going to be tempted by simple answers, Lord says. If there is a crisis in the EU’s legitimacy, it is part of a bigger crisis of politics, economics and law combined. On top of this, we need to deal with intersecting state and non-state systems, the professor explains. He is very happy to have succeeded under highly competitive conditions.
98 per cent score
– This is the result of a major effort, research advisor Geir Kværk adds. Several of us at ARENA have worked systematically through repeated rounds to improve the proposal – which in the end received a 98 per cent score in the evaluation.
– The competition for EU funding is extremely tough. This is particularly so in the so-called bottom-up calls, where you can improve and resubmit a proposal in consecutive rounds. For each call, the competition thus gets harder. An ITN proposal needs a close to perfect evaluation in order to be granted, Kværk explains. He is also very happy that the efforts payed off in the end.
– We have established a great team with lots of competence and experience. Setting up such a PhD school will be a new and exciting endeavour for ARENA.
PLATO is the third network of its kind to be coordinated by the University of Oslo, after NanoHeal and MARmaED were established at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in 2015.
