On September 25 and 26, the midterm conference for the EU-LISTCO project took place at the Bilkent Hotel and Conference Center. EU-LISTCO, which stands for “Europe’s External Action and the Dual Challenges of Limited Statehood and Contested Orders,” is funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program and has a research consortium consisting of 14 universities and think tanks from across Europe and the Middle East. The project is coordinated by Prof. Tanja Börzel and Prof. Thomas Risse at the Freie Univesität Berlin. At Bilkent University, Assoc. Prof. Saime Özçürümez of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration is the scientific lead.
The conference was organized around one of the central themes of the project: resilience, referring mainly to the capacity of communities to manage risks in a peaceful manner. Prof. Erinç Yeldan, Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, opened the conference, with remarks by Dr. Özçürümez, Prof. Börzel and Prof. Risse following; then came five thematic sessions focusing on how to manage global and diffuse risks in the EU’s Eastern and Southern neighborhoods. The conference concluded with a public event panel on the topic of “tipping points” of violent conflict and governance breakdown. Panel participants included Prof. Akif Kireçci from Ankara Social Sciences University and Prof. Ahmet İçduygu from Koç University, along with Prof. Börzel and Prof. Risse.