ENLIGHTEN responds to the first part of the EURO-4 call on “The future of European integration - 'More Europe – less Europe?'” by bringing together an interdisciplinary ‘next generation’ research team that integrates insights from Comparative Political Economy, European Studies, International Political Economy, and Sociology. ENLIGHTEN answers the call by focusing on how European modes of governance respond to ‘fast-burning’ and ‘slow-burning’ crises. These types of crises differ in how they affect the legitimacy of European input, output, and throughput processes in established and emergent modes of governance. In fast-burning crises interests are quickly formed and ideational and resource battles ensue over how to coordinate policy ideas, what institutions should be engaged, and communicating these changes to the public. Networks in fast crises are composed of defined groups seeking to protect or carve out their interests. In slow-burning crises interests are less obvious and the key task is often how to define the issues involved and who should address the problem. Here networks are commonly composed of experts who battle over how issues should be defined, as well as the boundaries on how coordinative and communicative discourses are articulated. Both fast- and slow-burning crises must be addressed by European modes of governance, with serious implications for the legitimacy and efficiency of the European project. Both raise political, social, and economic sensitivities that are transforming democratic politics in Europe. ENLIGHTEN addresses these themes through a series of linked cases that speak directly to the legitimacy and efficiency of European modes of governance.

Context and backgroundTriple-I doctoral training, defined as the international cross-fertilization between disciplines and sectors, is promoted widely in higher education across Europe. A network of nine graduate schools for the social sciences and humanities (SSH) collaborated from September 2017 until September 2020 to produce adequate practical instruments for stimulating, organizing and managing Triple-I training, relevant to 1) PhD-researchers, 2) supervising and teaching staff, 3) doctoral curricula and 4) organisational procedures. ObjectivesGraduate Spirit aimed to • Provide a systematic Inventory of current policies, procedures and practices to promote interdisciplinarity and diversity in the participating GS. • Identify a full range of best practices and combine them into a ‘Blueprint’ for successful interdisciplinary and diverse GS. • Develop and test innovative instruments Triple-I training ileading to an ‘Innovation menu’ from which individual GS can pick and combine. • Engagement of a wide range of GS and policy makers in and outside the EU by opening and sharing results, using dedicated interactive instruments for data- and knowledge sharing. Number and profile of participants;The SPIRIT consortium consisted of nine national GS of the SSH in the Netherlands, Germany (2), Poland, Finland, France, the UK, Belgium and Hungary (our partner there, CEU, moved to Vienna during the project). They represented the two big organisational forms that are typical of European GS in the SSH: big umbrella organisations (Netherlands, Belgium, France, Finland) and small thematic schools or programs (Poland, the UK, Hungary, Germany). ActivitiesGraduate SPIRIT conducted three types of activities: 1) collecting information through desk research, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. 2) producing practical tools for new schools and schools looking to improve their practices with respect to handling the diversity of their PhD-candidates, incentivizing their staff to follow Triple-I perspectives; adjust the curriculum to the digital age; and make their organisations safe and inclusive. 3) engaging with a wide variety of (inter)national networks and stakeholders to discuss and promote Triple-I doctoral training. Results and impact Graduate Spirit produced:* a systematic Inventory of current policies, procedures and practices to promote interdisciplinarity and diversity in the participating GS. This showed that all these dimensions are heavily influenced by the two main organisational forms of schools found in the project, i.e. large umbrella schools and small thematic schools. * a full range of best practices with respect to PhD-researchers, supervising and teaching staff, doctoral curricula and organisational procedures which were collected and presented in an easy searchable online catalogue of ‘Tips and Tricks’. * an online Innovation Menu for schools interested in: providing services to PhDs regarding their wider employability; training supervisors to handle the international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral diversity of their PhD-candidates; adjusting the curriculum to forms of e-learning and design thinking; helping the schools address the issues of vulnerability and safety in the PhD-trajectory. * important direct impact on the national doctoral training policies in Poland, Moldavia, Cuba and on practical arrangements of universities in Kurdistan and Chile, and significant engagement with university managers, higher education experts, supervisors and PhD candidates across Europe. Long term benefitsAll partners have adjusted their practices and incorporated the findings of the project in their activities for PhD-candidates, staff and supervisors, curriculum and organisation. Specific countries (Poland, Moldavia, Cuba) and universities outside of the network have used and are using the tools produced by Graduate Spirit.Please see for full detail about the project: www. gradspirit.eu

Global challenges require global policy solutions. The Global Programme to Prevent Son Preference and Gender-biased Sex Selection (2017-2019) and the Joint Programme on the Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (2018-2021), both co-funded by the European Union (EU) and carried out by the United Nations (UN), are representative of a range of new initiatives that seek to share knowledge and enact policy change across different jurisdictions. Despite the promise of such global programmes, however, the challenges involved in working across different cultures and policy regimes may prevent them from fully achieving their goals. Very little is known about how knowledge is transferred through these programmes and how it translates into concrete policy. GlobalKnoT assesses knowledge transfer in the Global Programmes on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and Gender-biased Sex Selection (GBSS) to inform academics, practitioners and the public about their functioning and efficacy in providing solutions to global public challenges. By applying the Actor-Network Theory to global policy studies and drawing from policy files, participant observation during international conferences, and expert interviews with UN, WHO and EU officials and policy makers, this project provides a detailed map of the actors and networks involved in global policy. It informs us how knowledge diffusion can be optimized to accelerate change towards eliminating two pervasive forms of gender discrimination and advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.