University of Kent

As part of his first visit to Brussels as a director of Lukoil, Professor Igor Ivanov, former Russian Foreign Minister gave an exclusive lecture to students of BSIS on Thursday 26 November at 15h00 in the Wilson Room. Details here>

As part of the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Brussels School of International Studies and in the presence of both the Chancellor and Chair of the Council of the University of Kent, General Sir Mike Jackson, the former NATO commander in Kosovo and head of the British Army, gave a special guest lecture to students, staff and alumni. Details here »

Edward Mortimer, former Director of Communications in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations,gave a guest lecture to students. Find out more »

In Sep 09 Professor Roger Vickerman was appointed as the Dean of the University of Kent at Brussels (UKB). Professor of European Economics at the University of Kent, he founded the Centre for European, Regional and Transport Economics in 1993 and has been its Director since then. Professor Vickerman took over from the current incumbent, John Macgregor, in September 2009. Details here »

In April 09, BSIS lecturer Dr. Harm Schepel and Professor Wolf Sauter from Tilburg University published 'State and Market in EU Law' with Cambridge University Press. The book offers an analysis of the law of the internal market through the lens of the distinction between the private and public realms of the economy as established by the European Courts. Details here »

Faith Nibbs, Southern Methodist University, gave a talk on "Hmong Refugees in the United States and Germany".

Ardell Fleeson, Broker, Tenant Representation, CB Richard Ellis, gave a Guest Lecture on Networking as a part of American Business Practice to students and staff of the Brussels School of International Studies. This lecture was part of a series that Ardell was giving in London and the South East of UK. Find out more »

Dr. Elena Atanassova-Cornelis from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven lectured BSIS on the most important issues and recent developments concerning post-Cold War security in North-East Asia and in particular the role of China, Korea and Taiwan as well as the relationships between Japan, China, Russia and the USA.

Debnis Chaib, Principal Administrator in charge of EU-India Relations and a former Fellow at Yale University, gave a lecture on 15 Oct about the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy and the role played by the Commission. He looked in particular at the role the European Union played in the crisis between Russia and Georgia.

On 10 October 2008, Ambassador Sune Danielsson, Head of Secretariat for the Wassenaar Arrangement spoke to the school about Export Control and the role that his organisation plays in stregthening international security. In his talk Ambassador Danielsson explained the origins of the Wassenaar Agreement, the first global multilateral arrangement covering both conventional arms and sensitive dual-use technologies and how it  promoted transparency and greater responsibility in transfers of conventional weapons and dual-use goods and technologies, prevented the destabilizing accumulation of arms and dual-use goods and also encouraged national policies of restraint.

In June 2007 the European Union launched its “Strategy for a New Partnership’ with the states of Central Asia. In order to review the first year of the implementation of the Strategy the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), in cooperation with four of the leading political groups in the European Parliament, convened a seminar on 8th October 2008 devoted to the emerging relationship between the EU and the states and societies of Central Asia. Find out more »

Luca Carapelli, an EU and OSCE election monitor, spoke to the school on 8 October 2008 about his experience in Ukraine, Belarus and Armenia and about his time as an Observer in Kosovo. In his lecture he covered the electoral observation process, its problems, rewards and dangers as well as talking about Post-Conflict Rehabilitation and the Democratization Process.  

Mr Carapelli graduated in Political Sciences and International Law at the University of Siena and has since then specialised in Human Rights, Post-Conflict Rehabilitation, the Democratization Process, as well as Electoral and Civil Affairs.  He has worked mainly in the Balkans, the Caucasus and in the republics of the Former Soviet Union.  

In Kosovo he worked for the Italian Liaison Office in Pristina reporting on minorities and security issues and then as an Observer after the riots of March 2004. He has also been an Electoral Observer to the OSCE Missions to Belarus, Armenia and Ukraine where he was able to witness at first hand the political and social factors that a transitional democracy has to face.  After having been a researcher on Human Rights and Security at the EC Delegation to Ukraine and Belarus, Mr Carapelli moved to Brussels and now works an Italian Agency which is implementing a EuropeAid financed project in the CIS Region.

As part of a series of lectures to celebrate our 10th anniversary, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, former British Ambassador to the UN and the EU spoke to students, alumni and friends of the school on 2 October 2008. The event was held in the British Embassy by kind permission of Dr Rachel Aron, the British Ambassador to Belgium. Find out more »

The University of Kent's Brussels School of International Studies hosted the European Semi-Finals of the Global Security Challenge in the Hotel Silken Berlaymont, Brussels on 24 September 2008.

Five startups, who were chosen out of hundreds that entered this international competition, pitched their inventions at the event.  The Jury selected the two most promising security startups in Europe, who now go on to London to compete in the Grand Final for a chance to win a $500,000 grant. The winners, who have designed a new solution for securing data remotely and a software for real-time exploration of Arabic-language documents, are:

Beyond Encryption from Ireland has built and deployed an enforcement tool for remote information security.  It enables an organization to take an offensive approach and pursue any device and its data and put either or both beyond the use of the current user.   It is the first precision information protection weapon with pinpoint accuracy for targeting and protecting sensitive information on any device regardless of location.  (www.beyondencryption.com)  

Intuview from Israel has developed a multi-engine “artificial intuition” software for real-time categorization, summarization and Intel extraction from large batches of documents in Arabic, relating to the domain of Islam and terrorism with the goal of creating a capability to interpret  the hermeneutics of radical Islamic and terrorist related texts without the need to have well versed Arabic literate analysts on hand. (www.intuview.com).

Bernhard Semling, Director of Strategy at Smiths Detection and member of the Judging Committee said:

"I applaud all the competitors in the Global Security Challenge 2008 for their creativity in developing their concepts into products, and their business acumen in taking those products to market. The jury selected Beyond Encryption and Intuview to go forward to the international final in London based on their development of innovative technologies with global applications, in both the government and commercial sectors.”

The three other European Semi-Finalists of the Global Security Challenge developed technologies that range from detecting nuclear material in cargo, to saving compromised systems from hackers and an incident assessment intelligence software. Find out more »

University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies hosted a workshop for the British Academy Bosnia Project on Thursday 18 September.

Attendees included Sir Geoffrey Nice QC (lead prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic), the Bosnian Ambassador to NATO, Nikola Radovanovi, and Dr Jamie Shea, Director of Policy Planning at Nato. The following organsiations were also represented: European Commission, University of Kent, Center for European Policy Studies, International Crisis Group, Woodrow Wilson Center (Washington), Transtions On Line, ICTY (The Hague), Kings College London, the Government of the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina, European Voice and the University of Nottingham. Find out more »

This event took place on 17 and 18 May 08 with Dr Jamie Shea, Director of Policy Planning in the Private Office of the Secretary General of Nato providing the keynote address and Dr Robert Cooper, Director General, General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union as Guest Speaker.