Educational news

20 students successfully complete third edition of BSoG Winter School on EU Policy-Making

From 6 to 17 February 2023, the Brussels School of Governance, in collaboration with the Vienna School for International Studies and the University of Vienna organised its third Winter School on EU Policy-Making. The Winter School is the virtual counterpart of our longstanding Summer School on EU Policy-Making. Twenty participants of twelve nationalities joined from locations across Europe (Albania, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey, United Kingdom) and beyond (Canada). Together, they interacted in the two-week intensive online course to learn more about EU policy-making, governance and law, and its relation to other international organisations. The Winter School had a special focus on digital rights and diplomacy, touching on policy discussions related to freedom of expression, artificial intelligence, disinformation resilience, digital sovereignty and cyber security.

A special feature of the Winter School during the first week was the simulation exercise. We invited students from our partner universities in the EUTOPIA alliance to join our exercise and simulated the EU ordinary legislative procedure for two days with thirty-four students online. The students took on alter-ego roles as European Commissioners, national ministers, members of the European Parliament, tech executives, civil society and media and negotiated the proposed Data Act (on twin exemptions for SMEs on data-sharing obligations and for gatekeepers on data-sharing rights) for two days. In the second week, Winter School participants had the opportunity to interact with practitioners in the EU institutions, as well as follow a policy panel on dealing with algorithmic risk through EU policy.

The Winter School and simulation exercise are prime examples of our School’s aim to provide in-depth theoretical knowledge combined with practice-embedded and experiential learning. Both the Winter School and EUTOPIA project are made possible with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.