by Lars Josephsen, Marta Nachtmannová and Thomas Boje

The Activity Report for the third project year (i.e. the period from 1^st September 2007 to 31^st August 2008) was forwarded to the European Commission in November 2008. The report reflects the high activity level in the CINEFOGO Network: Up to now, CINEFOGO has fulfilled almost 3/5 of its activities in 3/4 of the project time available. This implies though, that more than 2/5 of the duties – i.e. 66 deliverables - have to be finalized in the last year. Consequently, the last project year will be a rather busy time.

The main part of the activity report encompasses sections on

• Project objectives and major achievements during the reporting period

• Workpackage progress of the period (describing all 50 WPs)

• Consortium management

 3 annexes are included. They cover:

1. Plan for using and disseminating the knowledge

2. Detailed usage statistics for www.cinefogo.org

3. Project time table and status

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Executive Summary from the Third periodic activity report

The Network of Excellence CINEFOGO – Civil Society and New Forms of Governance in Europe – the Making of European Citizenship aims at exenhancing the understanding of social and democratic participation in Europe. The CINEFOGO network is concerned with the importance of improving citizens’ active participation in governance at local, national, regional and European level. Through its scientific activities – joint research activities and dissemination of scientific results - the CINEFOGO Network creates new knowledge on the role of cultural diversity, active citizenship and formation of organized civil society in Europe.

General Scientific Goals of the CINEFOGO network

In order to accomplish its mission, CINEFOGO has set up two equally important programmes: A Programme for Integrating Research Activities (PIRA) and a programme for Spread of Excellence (SoE). The first is dedicated to the enhancement of integrating research activities and jointly executed research in the Network through conferences, workshops and seminars, whereas the second is inspired by the vision of an ongoing dialogue nourished by social scientists and affiliated partners from the public sphere and organized civil society.

The CINEFOGO network is a particularly large and complex project with 44 institutions involved and more that 250 scholars actively participating in the activities organised by the network. During the third year, the CINEFOGO network has advanced considerably in pursuit of its objectives. It has been very active in organising conferences and successful in integrating researchers both among the CINEFOGO contractors and from other EU-networks. Thematic integration has been strengthened by making the three guiding themes (Identities, Values and Civic Culture; Civic Participation and Social Protection; Multi Level Governance and Civil Society) more prominent and relating work packages to them. The international coordinator has encouraged the individual WPs to established cooperation and this has been implemented for several of the conferences and seminars which have been organised during the year.

The activities of the CINEFOGO network is concentrated around three major goals which all have been implemented under close surveillance from the international coordination theme during the third year. These goals are:

• Minimizing barriers for joint European integrated and coordinated research. With participation of outstanding scholars and institutions from 44 European universities and research institutions the CINEFOGO Network has build up a strong cooperative organisation for research and scientific communication on the themes citizenship, active participation, governance and organised civil society. Scientific institutions and scholars involved in the CINEFOGO Network represent several major research institutions in the ‘old’ EU Member States, which together with universities and research institutions in the ‘new’ EU Member States have created a strong and lively network especially for young scholars in Europe.
• Involvement of previous EU-research under the heading ‘Governance and Citizenship’. The CINEFOGO Network has established a dialogue between on-going and previously financed TSER-EU projects in the research area of ‘Civil Society, Citizenship and Governance’. During the last year contact has been taken with several of the European Research Network and cooperation has been established. Conferences / workshops have been held in joint cooperation between the CINEFOGO Network and RECVOWE (Paris WP13), Demonet (WP30), and ISTR, EMES (Barcelona WP34) EMES (Summer School, Corsica, WP35), NPGA-ESRC Network (London WP37), ESA (Summer School, Crete, WP41), and SUSDIV (Copenhagen WP47).
• 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. This has been done through our programme for dissemination of scientific results – the OUTCOME database, a monthly e-letter with news from the CINEFOGO Network, a Newsletter every six months. Two final conference are planned in Brussels in close cooperation with representatives from the EU-Commission and from the European civil society organisations. The Conferences will take place in Brussels March 2009 – Social Rights, Active Citizenship and Governance in the European Union (WP44) – and June 2009 – Citizenship, Governance and Social Quality (WP45).

Publications, Dissemination

During the third year of the CINEFOGO Network the publication strategy has been strengthened. It has been a major priority of the CINEFOGO Network to strengthen the publication record. At the moment several alternatives are available for publication through the CINEFOGO network:

• CINEFOGO Working Paper Series available in Outcomes Database –five such Working Papers Series have been established during the Summer 2008 with a common front page, abstract, ISSN number etc.
• Journal article or special issues of journals – here all together 34 articles have been published.
• Edited books either published through Edward Elgar – two manuscripts are on review – or The NOMOS Publisher in a European Civil Society Series – three edited volumes are on review or planned.

All types of scientific communication – papers, articles, memos and newsletters - are available on the CINEFOGO Database and for all publications the general public has now access. Scientific articles will further be distributed via the IconnectEU website to other related projects and simultaneously spread via CORDIS at the EU level to reach the policy makers. The International Coordination theme has in the Spring 2008 employed a Scientific Communication Officer to facilitate the process of dissemination in the CINEFOGO Network.

Ph.D. Activities

The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence considers its Ph.D. activities for young researchers as probably the most important activity in order to ensure the recruitment of scientific scholars for the years to come. During the third year of the CINEFOGO this activity has been especially intensive

• WP21: The annual Ph.D. seminar in European Civil Society Ph.D. dissertation network has been supported by CINEFOGO for 3 years – the 7th meeting of this network took place in Kaunas, Lithuania May 2008.
• WP22: Student Corner addressing Ph.D. students and Master students of Civil Society.
• WP35: Summer School on Social Entreprises, Third Sector and Solidarity-based Economy in cooperation with EMES, July 2008
• WP41: Summer school on Citizenship and Quality of Life in cooperation with ESA, July 2008.

CINEFOGO offspring: Network’s legacy and sustainability

The CINEFOGO Network is now in the beginning of its fourth and final year. Therefore the continuation of the most important CINEFOGO activities was discussed carefully at the Network Council Meeting in May 2008 and different core activities were mentioned as the potential offspring of CINEFOGO.

• The consolidation and continuation of the lively and prosperous European Civil Society Ph.D dissertation network (WP21).
• The Student Corner www.civilsociety.se  (WP22).
• EPICS - The European Programme In Civil Society Leadership (WP40).
• Creation of a Centre for International Studies of Citizenship, Democratic Participation, and Civil Society. This centre is based at Roskilde University but has as its primary goal to establish a research and mobility network for scholars and young researchers in the field. To facilitate these goal the centre will organise a Lecture Series in the academic year 2008-09 and in May 2009 host a Conference for centres dealing with Citizenship, Democratic Participation, and Civil Society in Europe and elsewhere.
• It was also agreed that funding for preparatory meetings can be allocated to working groups, which in the framework of 3-4 CINEFOGO Contractors would like to prepare an application based on the CINEFOGO WP-activities for either ERC, FP7 and ECPR. So far there has been successful cooperation with Rijksbanken, Sweden and EGOS.