On December 12th 2014, EURISC Research Fellow Alexandru Georgescu took part in the "2014 Asia-Pacific Retrospective" organized by the Romanian Institute for the Study of Asia-Pacific (RISAP) in the library of the Faculty of History building of the University of Bucharest. RISAP is the first Romanian think-tank dedicated to the study of the Asia-Pacific region, which is becoming increasingly important from the Romanian perspective, as a commercial partner, a travel destination, a source of investment and of security risks with global reach. The event saw a number of speakers with Asia-Pacific expertise explaining the most significant developments in the region in the year 2014. Aside from the EURISC Foundation, the speakers came from the Sociology Institute of the Romanian Academy, The Center for East European and Asian Studies, The Institute for the Study of Defense Policies and Military History (ISPAIM), and the Black Sea University Foundation.

Topics included the territorial disputes in the region, the election of a reformist Prime Minister in India, the shift in the balance of power in the Pacific and the US pivot towards Asia. Research Fellow Alexandru Georgescu spoke about the institutional developments in Asia meant to parallel those of the Western financial system, in particular the new development bank and monetary fund of the BRICS Group, established during the recent Fortalezza Summit. He also referenced the numerous other developments of this kind in the last few decades, such as the Corporacion Andina de Fomento, the Chang Mai Initiative, the Asian Development Bank, and the National Bank for Economic and Social Development in Brazil. He concluded by saying that these are all welcome developments, but they cannot be thought of as a replacement for Western institutions(World Bank, IMF etc), but a welcome addition to a more diverse institutional landscape, because the demand for infrastructure investment and economic support is far greater than the resources of all of these institutions put together. He supported this view with details on the newly created institutions and statistics on the need for new infrastructure, compared with the resources of existing development banks.

The Facebook page of the event can be found here, along with a list of the speakers.

EURISC Foundation has participated to a new debate as part of the "Dialogues on National Interest", jointly organized by the The Aspen Institute Romania and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Bucharest office. The series of three debates aim at producing intectually valid recommendations on the Romanian strategic interest, in both its internal and external manifestations, in a comprehensive, out of the box, crosscutting debate pushing the boundaries beyond what is conventional, by bringing together the community of experts in Romania. The first debate brought together Romanian experts looking at Romania's ambitions, needs and possibilities. The second debate in the series is designed to bring international perspectives in the discussion, placing Romania in the current regional and international context. The third debate, due in January 2015, will discuss the previous two events as well as topics which are significant for the current geopolitical period.

Dr. Liviu Muresan, the executive director of EURISC has represented the Council of Danube Cities and Regions at the "Cultural Identities in the Danube Region" seminar that took place in Timisoara, December 4 - 7, 2014. The seminar has been organized by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration, Department for Interethnic Relations, Danube Region Strategy and had as special guests Ms. Irina Cruceru (on behalf of the European Commission), H.E. Ambassador Gerhard Reiweger of Austria to Romania, Mr. Wolfgang Limbert on behalf of SUERD - PA3 Germany and journalist at Danube Connects, as well as other members from the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Muresan has moderated the second session of the event which looked at the creation of the Blue Book of the Danube Identities. A full description of the events can be found here.

Three members of the EURISC Foundation (Dr. Liviu Muresan, Drd. Alexandru Georgescu and Drd. Ulpia Botezatu) participated to the fifth edition of the 'Friends of Europe Conference', organized by the Academy of Economic Studies, Faculty of International Business and Economics, Bucharest. Against the background of developments within the European Union, the conference aimed at bringing together scholars from all over the world to present papers and debate ideas covering a wide spectrum of economic issues: general theory and policy, from both interdisciplinary and core epistemological areas, qualitative and quantitative methodology and modelling with particular emphasis on money and banking, financial markets, business cycles and economic crises, business and government ethics, public and private regulatory frameworks, along with dedicated approaches coming from the field of communication and applied languages, focusing on the role of training, research, translation and interpretation, as well as terminology, in broad or specialized economic discourses.

EURISC contribution entitled "Governing Europe from below: cities, infrastructure and resilience" investigates how infrastructures operate through the ubiquitous channels of everyday life. If crises are understood as both challenges and opportunities, the moments of failure help us build the resilience of our settlements. By analysing European documents such as the European Security Strategy, European Global Strategy, the European Security Research and Innovation Forum and others, the authors draw the attention towards the ways in which Europe enters the city from above and is rebuilt from below for the benefit of its citizens. The conference paper will be published in one of the conference journals.

The conference program can be downloaded here.
The conference website can be found here

Following the significant interest generated by the previous show on the importance of satellites to our daily lives and security, on October 13^th 2014, the EURISC Foundation and the Military Equipment and Technologies Research Agency (METRA) of the Ministry of Defense were invited on "Planeta Radio. Lumea in care vom trai", a radio talk show on Radio România Cultural dedicated to addressing topics related to science and discovery. Radio host Corina Negrea interviewed the participants on their project CRITSYS - "Space Systems as Critical Infrastructure" (link in Romanian), which has been underway for the past two years under the coordination of the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA).

The EURISC Foundation was represented by Research Fellow Alexandru Georgescu, while METRA was represented by Senior Engineer Captain Ştefan Popa and Engineer SubLt. Ştefan Arseni. The topics addressed were the importance of space systems, the numerous threats to which they are subjected and the importance of Romanian specialists pursuing such an advanced field of research as a contribution to European security studies and as a resource for future development and projects.

A description and a recording of the show can be found here. They are both in Romanian.