Opening Plenary

The Opening Plenary of the Research Network 1989 was held at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, from 12 to 15 November 2006.

The Opening Plenary had two aims:

Building Trust, Fostering Collaboration: For Research Network 1989 associates to establish working relationships as the cohesive core of the RN 1989;
Developing Working Group Agendas: For each Working Group of the Research Network 1989 to have a feasible action plan, ready for execution.

The most important elements of the Opening Plenary were:

A facilitated and general discussion of the agenda of the RN 1989;
An introduction of the working groups to each other and the RN 1989, allowing for familiarization with the agenda and people while enabling the exploration of joint intellectual interests;
Time to develop the working group agenda and strategy in discussion and collaboration with a wider circle of RN 1989 members, the advisory board and facilitators from the academy and foundations;
Peer review of the individual working paper proposals for feasibility with the aim of establishing mentoring relationships;
A search for the big and important questions about 1989, which help to explore the significance, causes, meaning and consequences of 1989 as well as reflecting critically on the ‘before’ and ‘after’;
Time for informal discussion around coffee, lunch and dinner.

We thank the President of the European University Institute, Professor Yves Meny, for supporting the Opening Plenary. We thank Professor Arfon Rees (History and Civilisation) and the European University Institute for hosting the Opening Plenary. Professor Phillipe Schmitter (EUI) and Professor Peter Wagner (EUI) we thank for addressing the Opening Plenary on questions of comparative research and transformations in the social sciences associated with 1989.

last modified: 2007-10-09