In December the Scholars headed to the Jagiellonian University in Krakow for their final module of their first year on the course. The fourth module of the Scholars Programme is devoted to skills training and project work. We were fortunate to pursue this demanding schedule amidst the beauty of Krakow and Poland’s oldest university.
Amidst a busy schedule, we held an open lecture by our Executive Director, Anthony Teasdale, which asked (and answered) who were the winners and losers of the 2024 Brussels power-play and gave us much food for thought about what we can expect from the current European Parliament and the new European Commission. The Scholars also had an opportunity to hear from each other, with five Scholars sharing the core idea of their doctoral research and the contribution they hope to make.
For two days the Scholars worked in their project groups to refine their policy projects. All of the Scholars had undertaken some research of various kinds since we last met in Budapest and the first point of order was for the groups to debrief and to decide which avenues to pursue during the module. One group, which is interested in urban farming, had a field trip to the community garden in Krakow and met the official in charge, who kindly shared her insights with them. All of the groups made excellent progress developing their ideas and drawing up plans for their future research as we head into 2025.
The project work was complemented by four training sessions. Two encouraged the Scholars to think about how to ensure that their approach to policy making is equitable. One looked at Gender Mainstreaming and the Scholars had the chance to look at how resources such as those of EIGE could be helpful to their projects moving forward. The second, led by Julie Cheung, an expert on diversity, equity, and inclusion, focused on anti-racism and how to embed it in our ways of thinking about policy.
A lively afternoon was spend with Simon Hall (Creative Warehouse) who shared his techniques for engaging audiences from start to finish and for making complex messages accessible, no matter whom the audience. Our final training session focused the Scholars’ minds back on the specifics of their policy projects, as Valerie Caton and Andy Heyn from the Centre for Political and Diplomatic Studies delivered training on how to write an effective policy brief and guided the Scholars through the process of a first draft.
