With the support of the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Programme, the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA) organised a student contest on the theme of ‘the EU in a post pandemic world’, open to high-school, undergraduate, and graduate students from the TEPSA network and beyond.

The pandemic has taken a huge toll in the world and has changed the way in which many different subjects are understood. What will the EU’s position be in the post-pandemic world? Will the EU come out stronger after the pandemic ends, or will it emerge as a weakened party in the world’s geopolitics?

These are crucial questions in the debate on the future of the European Union. TEPSA aims to contribute to this debate and reach a possible solution to these questions by giving the possibility to young Europeans to make their voices heard and to share their insights on this important theme.

RESULTS

The TEPSA Student Contest 2022 was open to submissions in two strands: an essay/policy brief strand, in which students were invited to submit texts of 1500-2000 words on one of four selected categories, and avideo strand, where interested students were invited to submit a short video on how the EU and EU policy has affected their lives.

Winning Papers: 

• “The EU is Ripe to be a Security Provide, But How?“, Mahmoud Javadi
• “Strategic Autonomy: a Multifaceted Issue“, María del Rocío García González
• “The EU’s Prospects for International Influence Post-Brexit: What Next for European Defence Integration?“, Anna Sophie Kirchmayr

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

The contest was open to high-school, undergraduate, and graduate students:

• Under the first strand, the interested students were invited to submit a short essay or a policy brief (1500-2000 words) on one of four selected categories, in a post-pandemic frame:
  • Digital policies in the EU
  • Green policies in the EU
  • Rule of Law
  • EU in the World
• Under the second strand, the interested students were invited to submit a short video on how the EU and EU policy has affected their lives.

POLICY BRIEF GUIDELINES

Students could consult the latest APA guidelines, including standards to format papers and references. Some examples of topics for the first strand are provided below – however, students were not bound to these proposals and innovative papers on new ideas & topics were warmly received:

• What systems could the EU employ to make sure its efforts for recovery are rights-based and follow the rule of law in all its Member States?
• What changes should be made to improve Europe’s Migration and Asylum Policy post-COVID?
• What should the EU do to ensure Climate Action becomes a global effort?
• How will the EU fair in post-pandemic geopolitics, with regard to strategic autonomy?
• Clashes between Western and Eastern Member States in a post-COVID framework: how to reconcile different interests and goals?
• Should the EU or Member States take the lead in representing Europe on the international stage? And why?
• What can the EU do to combat disinformation online and what are the lessons learnt from COVID-19?
• Should the EU take more responsibility for health policy in a post-pandemic world?
• What should the new EU foreign policy preferences be?
• How can gender equality be mainstreamed in recovery plans and be respected in all Member States?

VIDEO GUIDELINES

TEPSA continually strives to give young Europeans the opportunity to make their voices heard, and to share their insights on the European Union. How it affects their daily lives, what they would improve, and what the EU means to them.

• Video submissions were maximum 3-minutes long,
• Video submissions described how the EU affects your daily life (e.g. what part of the EU do I value in my daily life, how is climate change impacting my daily life),
• Video submissions were students’ chance to tell EU leaders how they can improve EU policies,

We were thrilled to receive a number of brilliantly creative submissions to this strand of the Student Contest.

PRIZES & RECOGNITION

The results of the contest were announced by 29 April 2022 and the best papers were published by TEPSA on its site. The three winning authors of the papers were invited to participate free of charge in the TEPSA Academy which took place in Brussels in Fall 2022, with travel and accommodation costs covered (up until €200). One winning video was be published on TEPSA’s YouTube channel as well as on the TEPSA website, alongside videos from Europe’s leading academics and policy makers.

The TEPSA Academy is a 4-day seminar on EU affairs, gathering diverse groups of young Europeans and providing them with first-hand insights on the functioning of the EU through lectures by leading experts and visits to EU institutions.