What is CINEFOGO?

The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence "Civil Society and New Forms of Governance in Europe - the Making of European Citizenship" started by 1st of September 2005 and is part of the Sixth EU Framework Programme priority 7: New forms of citizenship and cultural identities.

CINEFOGO is a consortium consisting of 39 universities and research institutions, and a number of public service institutions in 15 European countries. The Network includes about 150 individual researchers. Almost half of these are women.

The Network seeks to provide knowledge about civil society, citizenship and social protection, to nourish a public debate on governance, and to strengthen intellectual co-operation

In terms of core issues, the CINEFOGO Network places focus on

• Active citizenship: to promote citizens' involvement in policy-making
  Organized civil society: to understand the impact of different forms of citizenship and civic participation
  Multiple identities: to identify factors that help co-existence among multiple identities in Europe

During the first 18 months the CINEFOGO Network of Excellence will in its activities for integrating research address three themes. These themes are:

• Identities, Values and Civic Cultures in Europe- Integration and Diversity
•  Citizenship and Civic Participation in Relation to Social Protection
•  Multi-level Governance and Organized Civil Society

Each research theme is addressed through various work packages that contribute to the generation of knowledge and research co-operation within the CINEFOGO Network.

Goals for the potential impact of the CINEFOGO Network of Excellence

The Network's potential impact must be evaluated against our ambition of fulfilling the following four goals:

1. Minimizing barriers for joint European integrated and coordinated research. With participation of outstanding scholars and institutions from several of Europe's oldest, best and internationally most well known universities and research institutions, the CINEFOGO Network has the capacity to become a longstanding arena for a joint scientific input to the making of European citizenship under the influence of cultural diversity.

2. Building up research capacities between the 'old' and 'new' EU Member States. Scientific institutions and scholars involved in the CINEFOGO Network represent several major research institutions in the 'old' EU Member States. They will be joined by colleagues from the 'new' Member States and candidate countries in common collaborative efforts strengthening the research on Civil Society, Citizenship and Governance. Besides the goal of minimizing barriers for joint European research, the CINEFOGO Network will engage in building new research capacity in what formerly was considered to be the periphery of Europe. The conferences and training activities organized in the CINEFOGO Network are open for scholars outside the Network. Here special efforts will be done to involve scholars from the 'new' Member States and the candidate countries in these activities. So far a significant number of scholars outside the CINEFOGO have attended our activities and several institutions have shown interest in becoming members.

3. Involvement of previous EU-research under the heading 'Governance and Citizenship'. The CINEFOGO Network would like to establish a dialogue between on-going and previously financed TSER-EU projects in the research area of 'Civil Society, Citizenship and Governance'. A first step in this dialogue / cooperation will be involvement of previous EU-project under the FP5 - research programme in the activities taking place in the scientific activities of the CINEFOGO. In order to intensify the communication between the EU-project financed under the 6th Framework Programme a special project for dissemination has been launched and approved by the EU - IconnectEU (see a more detailed description in section 8 in this issue of the Newsletter).

4. Providing institutional capacity for a continued dialogue between researchers, policy makers, public service institutions and organized civil society on the political future of the European Union, especially with respect to the promotion of citizens' involvement and participation in policy making. The institutional framework offered by CINEFOGO will contribute to the process of European integration with respect for the impact of various national civic cultures. The arena for public discourse on the future of European citizenship provided by CINEFOGO must be seen as an input to tackle the alienation many citizens feel from the work undertaken by the European Union.

The four goals are closely related to our two network programmes. Our Programme for Integrating Research Activities (PIRA) and our Programme for Spread of Excellence (SoE) are considered of equal importance when it comes to an estimation of the Network's potential impact.

The Network will achieve goals 1, 2 and partly 3 through the Programme for Integrating Research Activities and for each of the themes the CINEFOGO Network has appointed responsible coordinators for the scientific activities:

•  Identities, Values and Civic Cultures - Integration and Diversity - Sikya Kovacheva (skovacheva@mbox.contact.bg), Lars Hulgård (hulg@ruc.dk) and Thomas P. Boje (boje@ruc.dk). 
•  Citizenship and Civic Participation in Relation to Social Protection - Adalbert Evers, Justus Liebig University, Giessen ( adalbert.evers@uni-giessen.de) and Thomas P. Boje (boje@ruc.dk). 
•  Multi-level Governance and Organized Civil Society - Carlo Ruzza, University of Trento (carlo.ruzza@soc.unitn.it) and Lars Hulgård, Roskilde University (hulg@ruc.dk).

When it concerns goal 4 and partly goal 3 the implementation will take place through the Programme for Spread of Excellence. This programme is described more in detail in other sections of the Newsletter. The Spread of Excellence programme is chaired by professor Martin Potucek (potucek@fsv.cuni.cz) and Marta Nachtmannova (nacht@fsv.cuni.cz), Center for Social and Economic Strategies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague.

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