Jean Monnet chair
About Jean Monnet Chairs
The European Commission awards the Jean Monnet Chair annually to university professors around the world excelling in specific fields of European Union studies. For three years, the Jean Monnet Chair provides its holders with financial support to develop and deliver innovative courses and research in European Union subject areas, both in the Member States and in third countries.
Its name honours who was considered one of the Founding Fathers of the European Union, along with Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schuman and Alcide De Gasperi. Jean Monnet was the first president of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, within the framework of the Schuman Plan. He subsequently continued to play an essential role in European integration throughout his life.
It is the first time that a Jean Monnet Chair is awarded in Ecuador.
About Régis Dandoy
Régis Dandoy (PhD, 2012) is Professor of Political Science at the USFQ and Director of the Centre for European Studies. He holds a Jean Monnet chair (2022-2025), the first chair ever attributed to an Ecuadorian university.
Prof. Régis Dandoy is also Associate Researcher at the University of Brussels (ULB, Belgium), Waseda University (Japan) and United Nations University (UNU). He published various scientific articles in international journals and is giving conferences on electoral processes and on electronic voting around the world. He also participates in missions of electoral observation in Latin America and in Asia and is assisting several countries in their management of elections.
About DemObsEU
The project “Observing democracy: The impact of EU election assistance and observation on the quality of democracy” (DemObsEU – number 101048218) aims at contributing to the EU’s objective of strengthening democratic institutions in third countries by integrating the EU instruments of election assistance and election observation onto high-level research and teaching activities. In particular, election observation is overlooked in contemporary research projects and publications and is often absent from teaching programs in major universities worldwide.
DemObsEU relies on four main axes. First, it develops an innovative research project on the systematic and comparative impact of EU election observation missions on the quality of democracy worldwide and aims at producing original research outcomes and publications. Second, it proposes high-quality teaching activities - three courses as well as a series of public events - on relevant EU-related topics at the USFQ. Third, it aims at improving democratic practices and electoral processes in Ecuador and at empowering the Ecuadorian civil society around issues of democracy and elections, among others by providing election observation trainings for the forthcoming electoral processes in this country. Finally, DemObsEU will contribute to a refinement of the existing EU instruments of election assistance and election observation by providing clear research insights and by suggesting relevant methodological and policy improvements.
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