On November 1, BGU Rector Prof. Chaim Hames inaugurated the Joint Eastern-Mediterranean Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Research and Teaching of the European Studies in Piraeus, Greece. The center, which formalizes links between two Jean Monnet Chairs, held by Prof. Sharon Pardo from BGU's Department of Politics and Government and Associate Professor Foteini Asderaki of the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Piraeus.
Prof. Hames said he hoped the new center would be a hub of academic and research dialogue and in depth collaborative studies between researchers and students, as well as between the nations that border the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, which he termed “our sea" (the Roman name for it).
The center's founding was announced in July, 2018 as an initiative of the European Union's Erasmus + program. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is the only Israeli university to have been chosen to head a Jean Monnet Centre for European Studies.
The ceremony, which was also attended by Professor Aristotle Tziampiris, Chair of the Department of International and European Studies of the University of Piraeus and by Israel's ambassador to Greece Irit Ben-Abba, took place at the Laskaridis Foundation Piraeus. The positioning of the new center in the Eastern Mediterranean places it at the center of academic research dealing with European integration. As such it places Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the University of Piraeus at the forefront of European Studies research, in Israel and Greece and around the world.
