Thomas P. Boje

This report was worked out by CINEFOGO Network’s International Coordinator Thomas Boje after the Network Council meeting in Kaunas, Lithuania, 19. – 21. May 2008.

By the end of this summer the CINEFOGO Network of Excellence has worked for 3 years in a very successful and cooperative way. One year remains of the EU-funded period and during this year we have to make the CINEFOGO network sustainable.

At the Network Council (NC) meeting in Kaunas, May 2008, we discussed in detail the performance of the CINEFOGO Network and the 2^nd year Review Report.

The NC-members agreed that the CINEFOGO is an active and vivid network of European scholars in research on civil society, active participation, different aspects of citizenship rights and social protection, and the emerging forms of governance - all crucial dimensions of the present socio-political development in Europe.

The NC-meeting discussed in detail the tasks of the CINEFOGO Network for the final year. Here it was emphasized that

• cooperation and coordination of the work done within the individual Work-packages (WPs) has to be strengthened
• the publication records of the CINEFOGO network have to be improved and documented more explicitly
• the dialogue with stakeholders from organised civil society, political institutions and business has to be given a higher priority and to be better integrated in the activities of the individual WPs.

To fulfil some of these demands the NC meeting after detailed discussion decided as follows (see more in the NC-minutes):

1. The publication strategy of the CINEFOGO network. Here we agreed upon a multi-dimensional strategy:

• Book Series – both Edward Elgar Publishers and the NOMOS Publisher should be used in publication of books
• Special issues of journals. Several WPs have plans for special issues of journals and some have already been published – i.e. Social Politics on Gender and Citizenship
• Working Paper Series. All papers submitted to the Outcomes Database (CINEFOGO’s ’library’) will be organised in a number of Working Paper Series based on the main themes of the CINEFOGO
• A more detailed document will be produced during this Summer out-lining the publication strategy.

2. Concerning the coordination of WP-activities and dialogue with stake-holders the two Final Conferences are both to be held in Brussels – 16. – 18. of March 2009 and 16. – 17. of June 2009. They will both be conferences with representatives from the organized civil society and EU system.

CINEFOGO is still growing. During the 3^rd year, three new institutions have been affiliated to the CINEFOGO Network:

• Örebro University, Sweden
• Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
• Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

During the next months two more partners will be included in the CINEFOGO Network:

• University of Leicester, United Kingdom
• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Here I want to welcome all these new institutions. Then more than 250 scholars are affiliated to the network through its 43 partners.

Staff changes in the international coordination team

In the international coordination team at Roskilde University there is a change in the staff by 15^st of July 2008. The project manager Inger Vibeke Dorph has got a new and permanent position as project coordinator at the IT University, Copenhagen. Inger Vibeke Dorph will be replaced by Marta Nachtmannová, who has been part of the SoE-team in the previous years. Dalva Dean will still be responsible for the financial reporting of the CINEFOGO.

I want here to thank Inger Vibeke Dorph for her excellent work and enthusiastic involvement in the life of the CINEFOGO Network during the last three years. I also want to welcome Marta Nachtmannová in her new position.