🌍 About ValEUs
The European Union faces unprecedented challenges in upholding its mission of peace and shared values. While these values remain embedded in global governance, they are increasingly contested both within Europe and beyond. The ValEUs Summer School offers a unique platform to explore these tensions through a global and comparative lens.
đź“š A Global Summer School
The ValEUs Summer School was organized as three parallel schools held in Denmark, Turkey, and Mexico (11–15 August 2025). Each programme combined local classroom-based teaching with hybrid joint sessions bringing the three sites together online. The goal was to combine local expertise and create a truly international learning experience. Teaching activities included lectures, site visits, keynote addresses, and social events, fostering both academic insight and cultural exchange.
🇹🇷 Istanbul: Migration & Enlargement
Hosted at Istanbul Bilgi University’s Santral Istanbul Campus, the Summer School in Turkey focused on EU enlargement and migration in the wake of the war in Ukraine. Topics included experiences of Syrian refugees in Turkey, EU asylum policies, and the diffusion of European norms across the Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus.
🇩🇰 Roskilde: Euroscepticism & Populism
At Roskilde University the Danish Summer School focused on internal contestations of EU values, exploring populism, Euroscepticism, and democracy. Lectures addressed the conceptualization and theories of populism and Euroscepticism, the rise of populist parties, comparisons between populism in Europe and beyond, responses to populism both within and outside Europe, and the EU’s rule of law crisis.
🇲🇽 Guadalajara: Postcolonialism & Regionalism
The University of Guadalajara hosted the Mexican Summer School, with a program focusing on interregional relations and comparative regionalism. From a decolonial perspective, students studied integration processes, inequalities, human rights, and the rise of right-wing populism in global politics, with a special focus on Latin America and the Global South.
Photo Highlights from the Summer Schools
Learn More About the Summer Schools
ValEUs Podcast: Beyond Borders
Episode 10: A discussion about the ValEUs Summer School
In this episode, we welcome students who attended the ValEUs Summer school at Bilgi University. They reflect on their experience, discuss their perspectives on the EU and migration, and share insights from the programme.Â
