EXTENSION OF CALL - The EUFOG doctoral network “Contested EU Foreign Policy in an Era of Geopolitics” invites applications for 9 PhD Fellowships. 

The liberal international order, i.e. the collection of norms, institutions and power relationships that have defined the last decades of international political and economic relations, is undergoing major transformations. Although the final destination of these changes is still to be seen, the situation isshaped by a return of competition between great powers in a multipolar world (US, China, EU and Russia), facilitated further by growing geopolitical ambitions of many regional powers. The doctoral network EUFOG will contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which the EU is reconsidering key tenets of its international role in the face of this geopolitical turn in international politics.

These developments should lead to a systematic overhaul of research about the international role of the EU. Over the past decades, the EU’s role in international politics was perceived through the prism of two assumptions. First, the external relations of the EU were understood as reflecting the kind of polity the EU was: an integration-through-law project, and a community of values. Support for multilateralism and the promotion of certain international norms were seen as the unproblematic externalization of internal consensuses. Second, even when the EU entertained projects of reform for the international order, they sought to strengthen its institutions and norms, in a moment when such strengthening was perceived as being broadly in line with the trajectory of international politics. This state of affairs has ceased to exist.

EUFOG offers 18 integrated three-year doctoral programmes, providing world-class, interdisciplinary research and specialised training in social and political sciences, political economy, and communication, including research visits and secondments at associated partners, to bridge the gap between academic research and everyday policy practice.

For additional information regarding vacancies descriptions and application requirements, please visit the EUFOG website: https://www.eufog.network/

Network members:

• Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)
• Egmont
• Leiden University
• Jagiellonian University Krakow
• niversity of Oslo
• Vienna School of International Studies
• University of Bristol

• R02: Driving contestation on climate and gender. Populism, the Commission, and the erosion of the liberal international order. IBEI (PhD enrolment: UAB) (Spain)
• R06: Gender in EU external relations in an age of closure, community and competition. IBEI (PhD enrolment: UAB) (Spain)
• R07: Global climate politics beyond contractual multilateralism. Reconsidering EU as a green power. IBEI (PhD enrolment: UAB) (Spain)
• R13. The EU’s public diplomacy at time of crises and uncertainty. Cases on security and multilateralism. DA (Austria)
• R14. The Western security alliance under stress. The place of the EU. DA (Austria)
• R15. Great Powers and Multilateral Cooperation at the UN: Perceptions, Priorities and Outcomes. DA (Austria)
• R16. Clashing self-understandings of EU Strategic Autonomy in a context of geopolitical competition. UoB (UK)
• R17. Domestic contestation over the EU's new geoeconomic instruments. UoB (UK)
• R18. A new geoeconomic power? Assessing the impact of the EU's unilateral trade and investment policy instruments. UoB (UK)

The University of Leiden programme has a duration of 4 years.