Summer universities

From 1994 to 2003, Transeuropéennes has organised 23 interdisciplinary summer universities, intended for graduate students in the humanities, social science, political science, journalism and communication, who all had in common some form of political involvement. Transeuropéennes’ and its partner-organisations’ goal is to provide an alternative form of training for young students and professionals from the Balkans, on crucial subjects for the region.

Those training courses, either French or English-speaking, lasted three weeks and took place every year in the Balkans and in Strasbourg, in partnership with local organisations (universities, NGOs, foundations). They were launched in Rennes in 1994.

Aiming both at creating an informal Euro-Mediterranean space for cooperation and interaction and at developing and reinforcing innovative networks involved in the ongoing democratisation processes in the Balkans, Transeuropéennes draws upon a double network.

More than 700 young opinion shapers, former participants in Transeuropéennes summer university programmes, have been encouraged to develop networking activities aimed at fighting ideologies of hatred and violence, struggling against the manipulation of culture and knowledge for political purposes, and to foster the democratising of academic life (i.e. organisation of meetings, forums of discussion, etc.). Some 400 professors, researchers, NGO activists, writers, artists, journalists, local representatives… took part either in the recruitment of students for the summer universities or/and participated in the summer univresities as speakers.