European Civil Society Network

The European Civil Society Network (CiSoNet) deals with a most promising issue of European integration and enlargement: the emergence, dynamics and perspectives of a European-wide civil society. Embedded in the EC´s 5th Framework Programme's Key Action on "Improving the socio-economic knowledge base" CiSoNet aims at stimulating cross-disciplinary research that concentrates on transnational dimensions of civil society, thereby contributing to the building of a European research area in the social sciences and humanities.

CiSoNet links fifteen partners from ten countries (Germany, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Serbia-Montenegro), representing different disciplines - sociology, political science, history, anthropology, law and economics - and different types of research institutions within an initial two years work period (2003 and 2004).

CiSoNet carries out a variety of activities, so called "workpackages", consisting of major conferences, smaller workshops, additional meetings, research reports and case studies, focussing on four core areas: Languages of European Civil Society; Resources and Dynamics of European Civil Society; Civil Society, Governance and the European Polity; Civil Society and the Economy.

 

Funding:		European Commission
Contract No.:		HPSE-CT-2002-60051
Starting date:		February 2003 (duration 29 months)
Project coordinator:		Prof Jürgen Kocka, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB)
Lead partners:		Prof John Keane, Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), University of Westminster, London
		Prof Victor Pérez-Díaz, Analistas Socio-Políticos Research Center (ASP), Madrid
		Prof Pal Tamás, Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), Budapest
		Prof Peter Wagner, European University Institute (EUI), Florence
Project management:		Agnes Anna Arndt, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB)