The 2010 conference will be hosted by the College of Europe, Bruges.

 

Venue: the conference headquarters and the venue for research sessions is the Verversdijk extension to the College of Europe [map]

 

Introduction

 

UACES will be celebrating its 40th annual conference in picturesque Bruges (a UNESCO World Heritage site).

 

The event will be a three day conference hosted by the College of Europe which will bring together academics and practitioners in disciplines such as law, economics, geography, history, sociology, public policy and politics from across Europe and beyond. There will be a large number of research papers presented as well as some plenary sessions.

 

Bruges

 

The College of Europe's teaching and administrative centre and its halls of residence are situated in and around the historic centre of Bruges, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

 

The city prospered through the cloth trade and by the 15th century was a major emporium for the Hanseatic League, with as many as 150 trading vessels calling at its harbour each day. Commercial decline set in during the mid 15th century, in part caused by the harbour's sea access silting up, and by the 16th century the city had become known as Bruges-la-Morte, a depressed state in which it largely persisted until the late 19th century. At the turn of the last century, Bruges was once again reconnected to the sea via the newly-built Boudewijn Canal and its fortunes began to revive.

 

Only lightly damaged in both World Wars, the city was well-placed to profit from the huge expansion of tourism in the affluent post war decades, and copes today with large numbers of visitors from around the world, whilst still retaining its historic appearance and highly attractive character.

 

College of Europe

 

The academic quality and the variety of its postgraduate European study programmes are renowned worldwide. The College of Europe claims to be the most genuinely ‘European’ of all the university institutes of European studies: it attracts a highly qualified pan-European faculty and welcomes students from across the entire continent and further a field; it enjoys a truly European atmosphere on its Bruges and Natolin (Warsaw) campuses, and it can rely on its unique network of personal and institutional relationships developed, throughout Europe and beyond, over the past 59 years. As the careers of many of its alumni illustrate, the College degree opens up rewarding professional prospects in Europe and at the international level.